Fringe Festival in Edinburgh

Imagine a city where the streets are merry without Christmas, imagine a city where everybody has a smile on their face, welcome to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. I’ve always been very intrigued by the Fringe festival so once my trip to Scotland with Haggis Adventures was confirmed, I got super excited and immediately googled up the schedule of events. However, it took me an extra minute to realise that I had just downloaded a 400 page PDF of shows in The Fringe Festival 2019….400 pages…. Overwhelmed by this massive schedule, I decided to wing it with recommendations from the hostel; obviously the PDF file had won. It’s really surprising how such a huge festival is not known to so many people out there, which is why I decided to post my experience here.

What is the Fringe Festival?

Simply put, Edinburgh Festival Fringe a.k.a. The Fringe is the largest arts festival in the world. It’s an open-access event that takes place all around the city of Edinburgh in Scotland. There is no selection committee and there is no restriction on who can perform and who can’t, so thousands of theatrical performers, dancers, comedians, artists and street performers from all around the world gather in the capital of Scotland and transform it into the most cheerful place on earth. The festival is organised by The Fringe Society which takes care of the program, logistics and other aspects of this joyful period.

When is The Fringe Festival?

It happens every August for about 3 weeks, check out their website for more details.

What is the history of The Fringe Festival?

It all began in 1947, when eight theatre companies just turned up in Edinburgh at the time of ‘Edinburgh International Festival’, unannounced. Of course all the major venues were already booked for this festival so these eight companies took advantage of the large assembled crowds to showcase their talent in other unconventional venues. They were a huge hit, the audience loved them and they quickly made it to the press, one of the critics referred to a particular performance as a show ‘on the fringe of the Festival’ which is where the word ‘Fringe’ started gaining popularity and over the years it just got bigger and bigger till it was given the name officially.

In 2018, 56,796 performances of 3,548 shows in over 300 venues took place during the fringe festival in Edinburgh, impressive isn’t it?

How much are the tickets of the shows?

One of the best things of this festival is that there is no fixed price on entertainment, the shows can be totally free or charged from as low as 2 GBP up to 20 GBP, it’s more really about covering the costs rather than making money which I believe is the basic idea behind this festival and honestly it is very much justified.

What did I do at The Fringe Festival?

I was in Edinburgh for 3 days and during this time, I couldn’t take 4 steps on foot without coming across someone who handed me a brochure nor could I find a single piece of wall without a never ending collage of posters, every street had something new to offer.

The city was bursting with life, people in parks enjoying their drinks and munching on goodies from the food trucks, singers, dancers, magicians, comedians, musicians, acrobats, there were people everywhere, to the point that it looked chaotic but they were all here for only one reason, to entertain or be entertained. It didn’t matter what time of the day it was, there was a show every few minutes somewhere around you. Choosing which one to go for was one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever had to make but eventually, after spending hours on the fringe app, I did settle on 3 different shows and here is a short review of each of them:

THRONES THE MUSICAL PARODY

Ticket Cost 15 GBP

What is better than the best TV show ever made? It’s parody. Two divine souls on the Royal Mile promoting the show convinced me pretty quickly to attend this show, besides comedy and game of thrones, what could possibly go wrong.

Hundreds of Game Of Thrones fans queued up outside the ‘Gordon Aikman Theatre’ for the sold out show, but thanks to my punctuality OCD, I was among the first 10 people. ‘Epic’ is an understatement to describe this show, I don’t remember the last time I laughed so much. They took almost all the major references from the show, the scenes which went viral and the public reactions of the major episodes including the series finale to put together one of the best musicals I’ve ever watched. The lady at the royal mile was definitely not lying when she guaranteed that I wouldn’t regret it. P.S. If you haven’t watched Game Of Thrones, then please don’t watch this musical because, one, you will hate me for the rest of your lives for spoiling it and two, you wouldn’t understand anything anyway.

MARVEL-US: AWW SNAPP!!

Ticket Cost 11.50 GBP

The world was gutted with Thanos’s Snap and then his unique defeat in the last Avengers movie, here was a take of the marvel movies by 2 comedians, geeking out on the marvel universe. A much smaller scale than the Game Of Thrones parody and it wasn’t very crowded either, I guess after the previous show my base of comparison was just too high. Either ways, that really didn’t matter; I was there to be entertained.

I loved the plot, the audience (including myself) are wiped out by the evil super villain’s ‘snap’ and have just returned after a 5-year disappearance. The two performers’ job was to bring us up to speed to what we’ve missed out in the marvel universe while we were away, that is enough to get me sold on the show. However, it was just OK, there were some funny bits and improvs but they could do a lot more. 

GOT A TEXT: A MUSICAL PARODY

Ticket Cost 9 GBP

I never got the point of staged drama in reality TV shows, so making fun of it was something I would pay to see. GOT A TEXT, was a musical parody of the reality-tv show, ‘Love Island’. Three pairs of guys and girls, all strangers with unique personalities from completely different backgrounds, stranded on an island where challenges are sent to them via text messages. God bless The Peaky Blinders for helping me understand and distinguish the different English accents that these actors had.

The show was very entertaining, the story was well written and the actors were phenomenal. The clash of the personalities, the back stabbing and the laws of attraction were portrayed very well. I just didn’t want it to end, although I would’ve missed my return flight if that had happened.

What I liked about The Fringe Festival?

One word, POSITIVITY. The overflowing positive energy in the city is something I cannot describe in words. Today the world has become a dark place but when you are in a place where you see people dancing, laughing and having a jolly time, you just want to live that moment as much as you can. The performers who bring this festival to life are really passionate about their talents and the audience is there in full support regardless of age, gender or nationality. If you are still not convinced, we need to have a talk.

What I didn’t like about The Fringe Festival?

The one and only thing I didn’t like was that there were too many people in the city. This is not a deal breaker and certainly not something that can be controlled, but I normally tend to avoid big crowds which is kind of impossible during this time so if you are traveling to Edinburgh during the Fringe Festival, be prepared.

Would I recommend The Fringe Festival?

Without a doubt, infact, this is a bucket-list experience which every single person reading this post needs to tick-off at least once in their life. The Edinburgh Fringe Festival brings different cultures together and showcases some of the best performances from all around the world. There is so much hidden talent there that I could’ve easily spent the entire 3 weeks at Fringe Festival in the Scottish capital without getting bored. And I thought The Lion King Musical I saw in New York was huge, boy was I wrong.

Where to stay in Edinburgh?

Anywhere around the Royal Mile is perfect for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe or even for the regular tourist attractions.. I stayed at THE CODE POD HOSTEL at The Court on Royal Mile. A new pod style hostel located right in the middle of the buzz with very comfortable pods, clean rooms and ample showers. Gone are the days of bunk beds, the pods are the new thing and I’m totally in love with it. You get the privacy you want without breaking your wallet for a hotel room. This is not a party hostel and has a very modern digital-nomad feel to it which is what I look for in my travels. The Code Pod Hostel has 2 locations in Edinburgh and I would highly recommend either one of them. Click here to get the best deals on The Code Pod Hostel.

Have you every visited the Edinburgh Festival Fringe? Did you attend any of the shows? I would love to hear more about your experience, give me a shout in the comments below.