Last-minute Fringe venues announced

With less than two weeks to go before the start of the Edinburgh Fringe, free show promoter Freestival has announced its new hub venue.

The operation was thrown into chaos after losing the Cowgatehead building it thought it had secured, when rivals at the PBH Free Fringe signed a deal on the building after the official festival had gone to press.

Now Freestival has announced it is taking over the arches underneath Jeffrey Street, which will host more than 40 shows a day.

The site is part of the New Waverley development being built next to the city’s railway station, and is accessed from East Market Street, which runs along the tracks on the Old Town side.

This will be the first time in 150 years that the Victorian arches will be regularly open to the public, having previously been used for industrial storage. Each arch will provide a performance space accommodating between 50 and 80 people.

Show appearing at the venue include German comedian Christian Schulte-Loh, Ingrid Dahle from Norway, and YouTube star Mawaan Rizwan.

Freestival member Dan Adams said it was ‘a stunning performance space which has remained largely unseen and untouched since mid-Victorian times’.

Nineteen arches are being converted into bars, restaurants and independent retailers for the New Waverley development, due to open later in the year.

Freestival is also running shows at Fingers Piano Bar, Sin Club and the Thistle King James Hotel, but not St John’s, which it also took bookings for but is now longer a Fringe venue.

Published: 24 Jul 2015