How to Hire for the Edinburgh Fringe — A Guide for Employers

Hiring for the Edinburgh Fringe is unlike hiring for anything else. You need a large team, fast, for a short period, in a city where every other venue is competing for the same pool of candidates. Here's how to get it right.

Start early

The best candidates apply early. If you're hiring bar staff, front of house, or technical crew for August, your job ads should be live by March or April. By June you're competing with every other venue, and by July you're scrambling for whoever's left.

The Fringe Society and the major venues (Assembly, Underbelly, Pleasance) all open recruitment in spring. If you're a smaller operation, matching that timeline puts you in front of the same candidates before they've committed elsewhere.

Write a real job description

"Bar staff needed for August" won't cut it. Candidates have dozens of options and they're comparing your listing against everyone else's. A strong listing includes:

• What the role actually involves — not just a job title, but the day-to-day reality
• Pay — candidates filter on this immediately. If you don't list it, they assume it's low and skip your listing
• Hours and shift patterns — festival work means evenings, weekends, and long days. Be upfront about what you need
• Dates — the exact period you need people, including any setup or teardown days
• What you offer — free show access, staff meals, training, references. These matter to people choosing between similar roles
• Location — which venue, which part of Edinburgh

We offer job description templates for every category to help you get started.

Pay competitively

The days of paying minimum wage for festival work are over. The Fringe Society pays the real Living Wage as a minimum. Assembly pays £13.45–£15.25/hour for bar and front of house staff. Candidates know this because we publish the data.

If you're paying below what the major venues offer, you need to make up for it in other ways — flexibility, free accommodation, show access, or a particularly interesting working environment.

Don't rely on your own website alone

Your recruitment page is important, but it only reaches people who already know you exist. A Fringe company running its first Edinburgh show doesn't have the brand recognition of Assembly or Pleasance. You need to be where candidates are actively searching.

Edinburgh Festival Jobs is purpose-built for this — every listing is seen by people specifically looking for festival work in Edinburgh. You can post your first role for free.

Think about accommodation

This is the elephant in the room for Fringe recruitment. Edinburgh in August is expensive, and candidates from outside the city need somewhere to live. If you can offer accommodation — even a subsidised bed in shared housing — mention it prominently. It's often the deciding factor for out-of-town candidates.

If you can't offer accommodation, be honest about it, and consider our accommodation guide for workers as something to share with successful applicants.

Respond quickly

Festival candidates are applying to multiple roles simultaneously. If you take two weeks to respond, they'll have accepted something else. Aim to acknowledge applications within 48 hours and make offers within a week of interviewing.

Edinburgh Festival Jobs sends you an email notification for every application, and your recruiter dashboard lets you review, shortlist, and respond in one place.

Consider volunteers carefully

Volunteer programmes can work well — Pleasance and C Venues run established, respected programmes that offer genuine training and development. But "volunteer" shouldn't mean "unpaid worker." If someone is doing the same job as your paid staff, they should be paid.

If you do run a volunteer programme, structure it properly: clear expectations, defined hours, meaningful benefits (accommodation, show access, training), and make sure it's genuinely optional. Read our volunteering guide to understand what candidates expect.

Ready to hire?

Post your first role for free on Edinburgh Festival Jobs and start building your festival team. No credit card required, no approval process — your listing goes live immediately.