Closing date: 10:00 on Wednesday 04 March 2026
Interview date: Wednesday 11 March 2026
Start date: Monday 23 March 2026
End date: Friday 25 September 2026
Location: Office based, central Edinburgh
The idea at the heart of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe is simple: anyone with a desire to perform and a venue willing to host them is welcome. No individual or committee determines who can or cannot perform at the Fringe.
It all began in 1947 with eight companies – six of them from Scotland – taking a risk, turning up uninvited and performing on the ‘fringe’ of the inaugural Edinburgh International Festival. Over 75 years later, the Fringe has grown to become one of the greatest platforms for creative freedom in the world, second only to the Olympics in terms of global ticketed events.
The Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society was founded by artists to nurture and uphold the Fringe's values of inclusivity, experimentation and imagination. We exist to support, advise and encourage everyone who wants to participate in the Fringe, provide information and assistance to audiences, and celebrate the Fringe and what it stands for all over the world.
We are seeking to appoint an experienced individual to the position of Communications Manager, reporting to the Head of Marketing, Communications and Sponsorship. This is a fixed-term position which will lead on proactive pitching to local, national and international media. Leading up to and during the Fringe, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society provides a Media Office for journalists and participants – the successful candidate will also lead on delivering this function. The Media Office team consists of the Head of Marketing, Communications and Sponsorship and a small team of seasonal support staff.
Role and responsibilities
The successful candidate will perform a wide range of duties, including but not limited to:
- developing a robust communications strategy for the Fringe Society, ensuring alignment with the wider business strategy priorities
- generating positive media coverage for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe through proactive pitching, reactive comms and a targeted campaign around key Fringe ‘moments’
- leveraging coverage for project announcements and the wider work of the Fringe Society through proactive pitching to arts, news, business, travel and sector-specific journalists and titles
- build strong relationships with key titles across Scotland, the UK and overseas
- managing the Fringe Society media database and media clash diary to ensure data is accurate, up to date, and available to relevant stakeholders.
- ensure the Chief Executive and senior leadership team are fully briefed for all media engagements
- collate data and insights for our review of the year and wider reporting as needed
- recruiting and line-managing a small but effective seasonal team to support delivery of the Fringe Media Office
- lead the seasonal media team in managing the media accreditation system, ticket request process, and the upload of all reviews generated by accredited media to edfringe.com
- planning and delivering the annual Meet the Media event in August, attended by around 600 artists
- working closely with other departments across the Fringe Society, including:
- the Marketing and Media Advisor to ensure they are aware of any topical issues which may directly affect artists
- the Street Events team to manage live broadcasts from the Royal Mile throughout August.
Person specification
Essential
- Experience of working within a media relations or PR role, either in-house or agency based.
- Excellent communication and organisational skills.
- A broad understanding of the UK media landscape, and strong relationships with key journalists or titles across broadcast, digital and print media.
- Experience of working in a busy, fast-paced office environment.
- Experience with spreadsheets, databases and confidence at learning new platforms.
- Experience working in the arts, culture, tourism, events or entertainment sectors.
- The ability to adapt quickly to emerging comms situations and deescalate where needed.
Desirable
- Media training or relevant qualifications.
- Professional membership of the CIPR or equivalent.
- A background in the performing arts.
- Experience of working at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe or a festival / event.
- Experience of media monitoring tools such as Cision / Meltwater.
- Confidence at managing live broadcasts.
- Experience of previously supporting a CEO or senior leadership team.
Rate of pay and hours of work
The rate of pay for this post is £16.50 per hour.
Normal working hours 35 hours a week, worked from 10:00 to 18:00, Monday to Friday with a one-hour unpaid lunch break. In the run up to and during the festival you may be required to work additional days and hours.
During the festival when the Media Office is operational you will be expected to work a six-day week. There is no overtime entitlement, but the Society does maintain a TOIL policy for additional hours worked.
We are a flexible working employer and therefore are happy to discuss flexible working at any stage of the application process. We are unable to offer remote working for this position. We can offer varied start and finish times and core hours with flexibility around them.
We use positive action under section 159 of the Equality Act in relation to disability or race. This means that if we have two candidates of equal merit in our process, we will seek to take forward the D/deaf, disabled, Black, Asian or ethnically diverse candidate in order to diversify our staff team.
The Fringe are active members of the Festivals Edinburgh Sustainability Working group and include climate action as one of the headline targets in the Fringe development goals. As part of the commitments of this work, all Fringe staff members are expected to assist with the Fringe Society’s environmental goals and consider these in all elements of your work.
We are also committed to maintaining the open-access policy of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. We are an equal opportunity employer and welcome applications from all sectors of the community. We are also proud to be a Disability Confident Employer and aim to successfully employ and retain disabled people and those with health conditions. We expect employees to support these commitments and to assist in their realisation.