THE Fringe is to revamp one of the key stages of the city's festival experience.
The performances on the Mound in central Edinburgh - a public space which is annually thronged with tourists and festival goers enjoying jugglers, acrobats, singers, actors and other artists - is to be re-organised for next year's festival.
The area this year has often been and packed with people, both audiences and people trying to walk, and yesterday at the Annual General Meeting of the Fringe Society, concern was raised about the conditions of the space during the festival.
The chief executive of the Fringe, Shona McCarthy, said the Mound, a man-made hill that connects the Old and the New Towns, surmounted by the Scottish National Gallery and the RSA building, would be the next public space to be revamped after significant changes were made to the Royal Mile artist performance this year.
However, how the changes will be implemented will depend on the major revamp to the National Gallery, which the National Galleries of Scotland are currently planning.
She said: "This year we have completely reviewed the High Street, and how it looks...and I think the new stages, the accessibility platforms have been really well received.
"I agree there is still work to be done on The Mound, and next year that will be a priority for us.
"We need to reconsider how we manage the street performers on the Mound, there are bottlenecks, there are places that could work better for us."
A street performer at the AGM, Silver, said that the space was now cramped and "a disaster".
He blamed the National Galleries of Scotland for, several years ago, erecting railings outside the gallery buildings, reducing the amount of room, including steps, for the public to gather on.
"Picture families sitting on those steps," he said.
The area at the bottom of the Playfair Steps, lined on one side by stalls, is often extremely difficult to navigate, he added.
He added: "Think about this fence, it has destroyed the area, if you want to make it better, get rid of that."
A spokeswoman for the Fringe said that the changes did not mean the removal of street performers, but a performance and facility revamp similar to the one experienced on the Royal Mile.
There has been much debate this summer about the use of public space in Edinburgh during the festival.
The erection of black boards on Princes Street to shield the view of the Summer Sessions gigs in Princes Street Gardens led to controversy and their partial removal.
Oliver Davies, head of marketing at the Fringe, added: "We've done a lot of work on the High Street this year, one of the reasons we did not extend that to the Mound is that the National Galleries of Scotland have a long standing application to redevelop their footprint on the Mound.
"We felt it was right to hold off, and we are still not sure what that impact might be, it will affect that space to some extent."
A spokesman for the National Galleries of Scotland said that the railings outside the National Gallery, while not always present, were part of its listed status.
The detail of the new revamp of the gallery will be revealed in the near future, he noted.
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