Kath Mainland, the administrative director of the Edinburgh book festival, the most respected literary festival in Scotland if not in Britain, is to take on the role of chief executive of the Edinburgh festival fringe.
The post became vacant after Jon Morgan resigned in the wake of the failure of a new box office ticketing system last summer, throwing the fringe into chaos and losing it £300,000.
A damning report was published into the mistakes leading up to the implementation of the system earlier this month, on which Severin Carrell reported here.
Mainland has plenty of experience for the role: she started her career at the fringe and moved into events organising, working on events such as Edinburgh's millennium hogmanay, BBC Music Live and the Champions League final. In 2005 she moved to the book festival as general manager and later became its administrative director.
It puts the book festival in an interesting position: now Catherine Lockerbie, its director, will have to find an administrator capable of steering the event safely through August.
