The largest arts festival in the world, plus five others running at the same time, in a city that doubles in size for three weeks.
In August, Edinburgh’s population roughly doubles. Six major festivals overlap, and between them they make it the largest cultural event on earth by ticketed performances.
What is actually running
The Edinburgh International Festival came first, founded in 1947 as a deliberate act of reconstruction — a gesture of European cultural reunion after the war. It is curated, invitation-only, and covers opera, classical music, theatre and dance at the highest level, in venues like the Usher Hall and the Festival Theatre.
The Festival Fringe began the same year when eight companies turned up uninvited and performed anyway. It has no selection process at all: anyone who can find a venue can register. It now runs to well over 3,000 shows in 300-odd venues, from converted lecture theatres to the back rooms of pubs, and it is where most modern British comedy has been made.
The Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo is on the castle esplanade every night, with massed pipes and drums and a stand for 8,800 people. It sells out months ahead and it is not part of either festival.
The Edinburgh International Book Festival, the Art Festival and the Film Festival run alongside, in varying August and non-August slots — the Film Festival has moved around in recent years.
How the Fringe works
Shows are one hour, on the hour, in tiny rooms, and the day runs from about ten in the morning to two the following morning. The big venue operators — Pleasance, Assembly, Underbelly, Gilded Balloon, Summerhall — each publish their own programme and account for much of the professional work.
Free Fringe shows, at PBH’s Free Fringe and Laughing Horse, take a bucket collection at the door instead of a ticket, and the standard is often as good as the paid rooms.
The Half Price Hut on the Mound sells same-day tickets at a discount. The Royal Mile is a continuous street performance of flyering and previews, which is either the best part of the festival or the reason locals leave.
Surviving it
Accommodation prices in August are roughly double, and you should book several months out. Restaurants need reserving. The Royal Mile becomes impassable in the afternoons. Locals develop routes that avoid it.
Give yourself gaps between shows. The most common Fringe mistake is booking five in a day and enjoying none of them.
The rest of the year
Edinburgh is not only a festival city. Hogmanay is a three-day event around New Year with a torchlight procession and a street party. The Science Festival is in April, the Children’s Festival in May, the Jazz and Blues Festival in July, and the Storytelling Festival in October.
