A venue at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe is to ask the audience to "pay what they think" a show is worth this summer.
C Venues, which will run the shows in the courtyard of the Ibis Southbridge hotel, will run the venue from 11am to 2am each day with shows covering comedy, drama and improvisation.
In a set up similar to Free Fringe venues, customers will be encouraged to pay how much they think an act was "worth" after seeing them in the C Soco at Ibis venue.
The venue thinks it the initiative will aid both artists and audiences.
Tickets will be sold on the door of the city-centre venue.
A spokesman said: "The C venues ‘Pay-What-You-Think’ venue is not competing with the Free Fringe’s model, we’re a full service venue that offers many benefits over and above that of the Free Fringe.
"We appreciate that coming to the fringe is an expensive proposition, and we’re aiming to balance this by providing a unique venue where participants can be a part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, receive the support and backing of a full service venue, all without without breaking the bank."
He said the new model provided a "low risk environment without a large upfront rental fee" for the artist.
He added: "We feel that this offers companies/participants the chance to bring their show to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, receive first-class support from one of the leading venues at the fringe and all within a achievable budget."
C Soco was a venue created in the Southbridge and Cowgate gap site, the site of Fringe venues demolished after the Cowgate fire and was home for shows between 2007 and 2011.
With the gap site now replaced by an Ibis hotel, C Venues returns to the site with a new C Soco venue.
Hartley Kemp, artistic director of C venues, said: "C venues has helped many Fringe performers and creatives make their big break.
"The package on offer to companies performing at our venue C Soco at Ibis will allow participants to show off new writing, performing and directing whilst allowing audiences to try out new companies and new work.’
Participants wishing to apply to be a part of this year’s paywhat-you-think programme at 'C soco at Ibis' can find further details and an application form at www.cvenues.com
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here