ZOO has been presenting shows as part of the Fringe for more than two decades. It operates two buildings each August – ZOO Southside and ZOO Playground – with a programme that combines established and new talent from all over the world. We spoke to the venue’s director James Mackenzie.

CC: Tell us a little about your venue and your 2025 programme.
JM: ZOO is the home for contemporary performance. We have a carefully curated programme of the very best of established international companies alongside brave new work from the most exciting emerging artists.

CC: Give us a very quick history of your venue to date.
JM: We started in 2002, on a bit of a mission to provide a home to shows that traditionally found coming to the Festival too difficult. Be that the scale of the technical challenge or the need for more venue support.

We started with two small rooms, then adding ZOO Southside a few years later allowing us to programme large scale, technically complex work that was missing from the Festival.

CC: How do you decide what shows to include in your programme?
JM: We have an open application call and myself and the team reach out to shows we know to see if they would like to come.

We see as much work as we can throughout the year but also we love taking a chance on work that isn’t finished at the time of programming, chatting to artists about their ideas and hopefully helping them realise them.

CC: How do you support your producers and performers once they arrive in Edinburgh?
JM: In any way we can! Every artist is different, they have differing needs or areas of the process they require more help with. We try to tailor our support to what the artist needs, not to any kind of standard way of operating.

CC: What is your advice for performers looking to promote their shows?
JM: Talk to everyone you can, word of mouth is king in this festival. Flyering does still work, but it needs to be backed up with a conversation, handing out bits of paper in the rain with no conversation will get you nowhere.

CC: What is your advice for performers looking to get reviewed?
JM: Write a great press release and get it checked over by your venue’s press team to get their advice before sending it out.

Also be targeted in who you send it to. There is no point sending to every email address you find. A comedy reviewer will not come and see a theatre show.

It’s much better to be targeted and, although a follow up is fine, don’t hassle the journalists, it will only ensure they don’t come to see you.

CC: What is your advice for performers looking to grow their industry network while they are in Edinburgh?
JM: Again talk to as many people as you can. The city is full of industry and you never know who you might meet in a bar. Also the Fringe Society’s Arts Industry Office can help with letting you know who is in town.

As with the press, it’s worth being very focused who you invite to your show. Find out what kind of work and what scale of work they programme, and invite those whose output is most similar to your show.

And if a programmer does see your show, make sure you follow up with them after the Festival.

CC: How can performers get the most out of the Edinburgh experience in terms of their career?
JM: Be very clear what you want from the Festival before you come. It’s not the same for everyone. Prioritise those areas, without a massive team you can’t do it all.

CC: How can performers get the most out of the Edinburgh experience in terms of their creativity and performance skills?
JM: You are one of over 3000 shows, go meet and talk to other artists. Stunning collaborations start here, so you may find the perfect person to make your next show with.

Also see as much work as possible, the breadth of work is astonishing and it will feed your creativity no end.

CC: What are the biggest challenges facing the Edinburgh Fringe – and what can the Fringe community do to meet them?
JM: In a single word, cost.

The Festival has never been cheap but the costs experienced by venues and performers are reaching unsustainable levels. Whilst efforts are being made to reduce these, many of the costs are simply not controllable.

Therefore it is imperative that the world’s largest arts festival gets the support it needs from local and national government.

£1.7 million in funding to allow stages of the Tour De France to take place here was recently signed off, and yet a yearly festival bringing both prestige and millions of pounds to the local economy gets almost nothing.

Unless the Scottish government and Edinburgh Council act, they risk – if not the closure of the festival – then certainly the downgrading of it to a shadow of its former self.

LINKS: zoovenues.co.uk