Performers hit back at moves to 'shut them out' in Fringe Society shake-up

ORGANISERS of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe faced an angry backlash yesterday over controversial plans to curb membership of its ruling body.

A mass meeting of performers, promoters and venue managers overwhelmingly voted against moves to scrap the Fringe Society's long-standing "open access" policy.

Fringe officials were also attacked for suddenly freezing new memberships earlier this year and blocking any anyone else joining in time to take part in a crucial vote on the biggest shake-up in the festival's history.

However the Fringe insisted yesterday's vote on the issue was not final, as the event was only part of a wider consultation process that has been running since last autumn.

The current board of directors of the Fringe will decide in October whether to go ahead with a policy which could see Fringe companies and producers allowed just one membership per organisation, and Fringe supporters, ticket-buyers and performers who do not register for the official programme frozen out. The Fringe may also directly hire some board members, rather than insist all are elected by the membership.

Many of the 100-strong audience at theMcEwan Hall - which descended into acrimony within minutes - were taking part in the Free Festival and Free Fringe programmes, whose audiences are not officially counted by the Fringe.

It emerged last month that hopes of having a new-look Fringe Society in place this summer had been dashed after a taskforce created to draw up new rules for membership and the appointment of directors failed to reach a consensus.

Fringe chief executive Kath Mainland was tackled over why memberships had been frozen and was forced to admit fewer than 100 of the festival's 239 members had taken part in the crucial vote to ban anyone else from joining up.

One performer said: "I've been coming to the Fringe for 25 years, but have found I am not being allowed to join the Fringe this year and I am now being shut out of the democratic process."

Another said: "It does remind me of a military dictatorship."

Ms Mainland said: "The idea is that the membership that was in place when we started the consultation process is the one that ends that process."

She added the idea of changing eligibility for membership was to create a closer link between venues and producers, and the organisation running the Fringe.

But Fringe veteran Christopher Richardson, founder of the Pleasance venue, said: "Everyone taking part should be able to opt in or out of being a member."

A Fringe spokesman said it had a record of only 14 people who had tried unsuccessfully to become members of the Fringe Society since new memberships were suspended.