After a number of years of visiting Edinburgh in August to take in bits of the various festivals (notably the Festival Fringe!) and work with groups producing shows as part of the festival, 2012 was the year I decided to take the head-first plunge and become a bigger part of it all. So I spent 5 weeks this year working on the box office team for one of the biggest venues on the Fringe with the encompassing goal of totally immersing myself in this city and in the festival for its duration at least once in my life!
For those who are not familiar with what is generally referred to as the Edinburgh Festival, this is in fact not just one, but up to 24 different festivals taking place in and around the city in August every year. The city is quite literally transformed to the point that you almost wouldnât recognise it if youâve visited at any other time of the year. Crowds can be enormous so if thatâs a problem for you then it may be wise to avoid the city in August, but doing so will mean you miss out on a truly amazing spectacular, the likes of which youâll not experience anywhere else in the world. The Edinburgh Festival now claims to be the biggest arts festival anywhere in the world and itâs easy to believe when youâre in the middle of it as there are performers and artists from every corner of the globe who flock to the city each year in August to showcase their talents, and even bigger crowds from around the world who come to see them. However, finding the best shows you should make a deadline for, and what shows are best avoided is another, rather more arduous task!
When I was selling tickets this year, and helping people choose what to see, it was not unusual for me, to hear the word âoverwhelmingâ being used to describe the choice of shows. Between 1-27th August 2012, there were 42,096 performances of 2,695 shows in 279 venues so thereâs little wonder some patrons were overwhelmed! The brochure for the Fringe is normally published in the spring each year, but you should watch the website (www.edfringe.com) for details of when the programme is announced.
Just turning up in Edinburgh without any advance planning to take in the Fringe and Edinburghâs other festivals in August, is how visitors end up feeling so overwhelmed so here are my top tips for making the Festival work!
1)           Where to stayâŠ
You will definitely need to consider this very carefully and well in advance, as much of the cityâs accommodation sells out months in advance. You should be considering this as early as a year in advance, and no later than about January/February and booking no later than mid-March if you want anything near a decent choice of places to stay. Also, youâll need to have a decent budget, even for cheap accommodation as accommodation providers put their prices up in August as they know they will still be able to fill the space due to the high volume of foot fall in the city at this time of year.
Hotels can be inappropriately expensive so unless you have a âskyâs-the-limitâ budget, Iâd generally not bother even considering hotels. B&Bs are much the same, and there arenât too many of them in or near the city centre anyway, and my best recommendation is that you find somewhere to stay which means you can walk to the centre within a few minutes rather than rely on transportation as time is of the essence when experiencing the festival â its unimaginable that youâll leave feeling like youâve seen everything you wanted to!
Hostels are great as there are many in the city centre but I often feel that their prices are a bit much during the festival as they can often be very noisy. You should bear in mind however, that given all the activities on offer, youâre unlikely going to spend much time in your accommodation as Edinburgh is definitely not a chill-out destination in August, so make a beeline for somewhere which provides your basic needs rather than something too fancy.
Self-catering property is definitely one of the best options but I recommend that you really only go for this if there is a small group of you so that you can keep the price down a bit. Thereâs tons to choose from and a basic internet search will bring up a wide range of choices so thereâs no point in me recommending somewhere specific to look as some fairly easy research will offer you what youâre looking for.
For individual travellers, my best recommendation is that you find someone you know who to travel to Edinburgh with, or be prepared to share a room in a hostel⊠not the best choice I know, but the wisest if you need to keep your costs down as youâre only alternatives are going to be pretty expensive.
Finding accommodation is often the most difficult part of the Edinburgh Festival experience so you definitely canât plan this early enough!
2)Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â What shows/acts to see – plan, but donât overplan!
You should definitely get the Fringe brochure as early as possible. To do this you can sign up for the mailing list at www.edfringe.com.  However, depending on what kind of performance genre youâre in to you should also consider getting the brochures for other festivals. I can highly recommend the Edinburgh International Festival, and also the Free Fringe, but there are plenty of festivals to choose from and youâll find a list of them here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edinburgh_Festival#The_festivals.
Some people will tell you to book for shows as far in advance as possible⊠or at least that seems to be the general advice⊠I say ânotâ! Taking an hour or two to browse the brochures is essential to make it feel like you have an idea of whatâs going on, but this is generally where I start to feel overwhelmed – donât let that put you off! Picking out a few things in the brochure(s) which you think look like they might appeal to you is the way I find best to start but donât book it all straight away as you should wait and see how it all fits into the time you have, and also what the reviewers are saying about individual shows.
The major venues (which generally get the majority of highest rated shows) are Assembly, Underbelly, Pleasance, Gilded Balloon, and Just the Tonic â between them they produce a separate brochure under the banner of Edinburgh Comedy Festival (www.edcomfest.com). Getting this brochure or browsing it online will help the planning experience feel a little less overwhelming. Although you should also check other major venue providers such as The Space, The Laughing Horse, The Stand, BBC Potterow, C Venues, and Universal Arts.
The trick which Iâve found to have made my Edinburgh Festival visits so successful over the past 3 years has been the smartphone apps. Edfringe produce a great app which lists all of the Fringe shows, plus it allows you to generate a list of favourite shows, and a Fringe diary to which you can add your shows with their time & date so you can organize your time more easily, and thereâs also a booking facility for all Fringe shows within the app. However, my favourite app is called iFringe â this has links to all the reviews as theyâre published and as each review receives a 1-5 star rating, you can start to get an idea of which shows are generally considered the best. However, Iâve been to a few highly rated shows before which have turned out to be rubbish (!) but in general, going with the advice of the reviewers has really made sure Iâve had some major festival successes! (Both of the smartphone apps mentioned here are available on the iphone through the itunes App Store â please check with your individual provider if you use a different smartphone).
As far as booking in advance is concerned, Iâd really recommend that you only need book something before the festival starts if one particular performance is especially important to you. There are relatively few shows which sell out entirely before the festival starts, but once it does start there are some shows and acts which sell out very quickly so your experience of individual companies, shows and acts can be highly valuable here. Iâve often booked for stuff in advance which I thought would be amazing and would sell out, and got there to find that Iâm one of a very small audience (some shows only get 2 people in the audience!), and that the show was pretty dire anyway!… but you have to be prepared to accept these kind of experiences at this Festival â if you donât see the bad stuff, what standard do you have to rate the good stuff!
Just listening to what people are saying about shows is good too â itâs not difficult to catch up on this while youâre in a box office queue, or if youâre lining up to go and see a show. Go with your instinct based on what you hear about shows in the street, and what people tell you.
With all this in mind, itâs important to know that headline acts generally sell out by the end of the first week of the festival, and any award nominees are normally announced just before the beginning of the last week after which their remaining performances will sell out within a day or two. So make sure youâve booked for anything by this point if thereâs something you havenât seen which is important to you.
3)Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Good shoes and wet weather!
Edinburgh is notorious for bad weather in August. Without question, you should take a waterproof jacket with a hood with you, may be an umbrella, and possibly some waterproof trousers. There was one rather exhilarating experience I had of wandering around the city for a whole day and evening one year, going from one show to the next in the pouring rain with only an umbrella and I ended up sitting rather uncomfortably in each show in my waterlogged jeans, but even though I had a great time, it definitely taught me that having waterproof trousers are a good idea! Many people wander around in single-use, plastic ponchos â they always look so miserable too though, so I donât rate these as the best option!
You are going to be walking a lot!… Iâve heard so many people at the festival grumbling about how much walking theyâve done, but if you prepare yourself for this and accept it as a part of the whole experience that goes some way to easing the pain! Edinburgh is not an enormous city by European standards and you can actually walk from one side of the centre to the other in about 30 minutes, but during the festival the crowds are so big that this can take a lot longer, plus you should plan your walking time very carefully if you have specific shows youâre seeing because the standard policy across the festival is that latecomers may not be admitted, and if youâve booked tickets already they will not be refunded or exchanged if you are late.
4)Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Ticket prices and discounts
The first two days of the festival are preview performances and almost all shows offer 2 for 1 discounts on tickets, so this is the time to see shows which youâre either not sure about (because theyâre cheaper if youâre in an even numbered group), or which are expensive and which youâre prepared to book far in advance for.
In general, ticket prices range upwards of about ÂŁ6, with the most expensive shows being around ÂŁ20 (although there are very few of these), and the average price is around ÂŁ10. When Iâm giving personal advice about the festival I tend to advise setting yourself a budget for tickets, and when that budget has run out, you should have seen all the major shows which were important to you if youâve planned things carefully.
Thereâs also the Half Price Hut at the bottom of The Mound, but itâs hit and miss if tickets sent to the Hut by the different venues for certain shows so you just have to turn up and see what theyâre offering.
There also used to be an iphone app and website called Theatre Ninjas, but it didnât seem to be working this year. It may work again in the future so itâs worth a mention â they list shows where you can go to the box office and give a password and get a free ticket!… I used it extensively in 2011 and had a great time with it so watch out for it in the future.
Lastly, you should always be prepared to stop and talk to anyone who is offering you a flyer while youâre walking around town⊠itâs not unusual that theyâll try to sell you their show by offering you a discount!
Thereâs a whole array of advice online about how to make the Edinburgh Festival work best for you but in the end I think itâs more important that you have the experience and donât think about it too much!… the more Iâve been to this amazing festival, the more Iâve realized that over-planning for it is not necessary. Once accommodation is sorted youâve overcome the most difficult task and the rest is all about soaking up the atmosphere. Establishing a budget is helpful but ÂŁ100-200 is more than enough to see plenty of shows over the course of 1 week, then you just need to budget for food beyond that and there are plenty of decent, cheap eateries in the city (look out for a blog from me about this in the future!).
This has been by means of a summary of my experiences with the Edinburgh Festival over the past few years, but next year Iâll write more specific blogs on how to tackle various things associated with the festival such as accommodation, food, and getting tickets. For now, just plan to make sure you donât miss this amazing festival at least once in your lifetime by starting to plan now to visit in 2013!
