Closing date: 10:00 Monday 27 April
Interview date: W/C 04 May
Start date: Monday 08 June 2026
End date: Friday 04 September 2026
Location: Office based, central Edinburgh
Background
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.
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.
Leading up to and during the Fringe, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society provides a media office for accredited journalists. We are seeking to appoint an experienced individual to the position of Media Supervisor (reporting to Communications Manager) who will be key in recruiting and supervising a small team and then operational delivery of the Media Office.
The Media Office team consists of the Head of Marketing, Communications and Sponsorship, Communications Manager, Media Supervisor and three Media Assistants.
Role and responsibilities
The successful candidate will support the Communications Manager and will perform a wide range of duties, including but not limited to:
- working with the Communications Manager, recruit and manage a small media office team for the peak August festival season
- maintaining a robust accreditation system for media and ensuring prompt review and approval processes
- ownership of the August Meet the Media event, ensuring full planning and management of the event
- overseeing the media ticket request process
- having awareness of current issues relating to the Fringe and the ability to identify emerging concerns that should be escalated to the Communications Manager
- acting as liaison between the media office and the wider marketing team to ensure consistency and engagement
- supporting the Communications Manager in tracking metrics for annual evaluation for the Media Office
- supporting the Artist Services Media Advisor with any requests they may have
- managing the Fringe Society Clash Diary.
To carry out these functions the Media Supervisor will oversee a team of temporary Media Assistants and will lead on staff training, organising rotas and ensuring the team are briefed daily on all relevant developments. This team will also be responsible for:
- managing the media monitoring service provided by the Media Office across the Society in the build up to and during the festival
- creating and updating of the annual Fringe media contact list for artist use
- creating an efficient media interview request process
- creating briefs for the CEO ahead of media interviews
- distributing media releases issued by the Society and maintaining the Society’s own media distribution list
- uploading show reviews on to edfringe.com in a timely and accurate manner.
Person specification
Essential
- Excellent communication and organisational skills.
- Experience of working in an extremely busy, fast paced office.
- Excellent customer service skills.
- Experience of working in the arts, culture, tourism or entertainment sectors.
- Good computer skills and experience with spreadsheets and databases.
Desirable
- Media training or relevant qualifications.
- A background and appreciation of the performing arts.
- Experience of working at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe or an arts festival.
- Knowledge of Scottish and British national media organisations including print media, broadcasting and digital media.
- Experience of media monitoring tools such as Cision/Meltwater.
- Knowledge and understanding of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and the role the Fringe Society plays within it.
Rate of pay and hours of work
The rate of pay for this post is £14.15 per hour.
Normal hours of work are between 10:00 to 18:00 (including a one-hour unpaid lunch break) worked over five days between Monday and Sunday. In the run up to and during the festival you may be required to work additional days and hours, which will be agreed in advance and paid at your normal rate.
We are a flexible working employer and therefore are happy to discuss flexible working at any stage of the application process. For this role we are open to discussing the possibility of flexible working.
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 Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society is committed to reducing its environmental impacts in its everyday operations. 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.