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ThreeWeeks has been covering the Edinburgh Festival yearly since 1996, making it the longest established festival-specific publication at the world’s biggest festival, as well as the most prolific reviewer. The Edinburgh Festival is simply the most exciting cultural festival on the planet. It is the biggest and the best. In no other city will you find such a wide variety of theatre, comedy, dance, music, musicals, literature and debate, all at the same time, as you will find in Edinburgh during August. Because of it’s vast size and hugely eclectic nature, the Edinburgh Festival can be off putting at first sight. Where the hell do you start? How do you pick shows from the 2500+ on offer, many of which have performances every day? To help you navigate it all, here is a quick(ish) guide to how the Edinburgh Festival ‘works’. The whole thing may look a little off-putting at first, but don’t be put off – it’s worth it, because everyone should experience the Edinburgh Festival at least once.
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| One of the reasons the Edinburgh Festival is so confusing is because it doesn’t really exist! No, really. The ‘Edinburgh Festival’ is actually a number of different festivals that all take place at some point during a five week period in August (with a core three weeks in the middle that most people consider to be the main ‘Edinburgh Festival’).
Each festival has its own organisation, director, website and printed programme – which is why you won’t find any one programme with ‘Edinburgh Festival’ written on the cover. These festivals include the Edinburgh International Festival, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the Edinburgh Book Festival, the Edinburgh Art Festival, the Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival, the Edinburgh Military Tattoo, the Festival Of Politics, the Edinburgh Mela, the Edinburgh Interactive Festival and the Edinburgh Television Festival. To make things even more confusing, while the Edinburgh Festival Fringe has its own organisation (the Fringe Society), website (www.edfringe.com) and printed programme (the ‘Fringe programme’), actually that organisation doesn’t produce any shows itself – it merely represents over 100+ independent venues, and 800+ promoters, producers and theatre companies, who together present and produce the 1700+ shows that make up the Fringe. Like I say, a bit confusing. But stick with us. Here’s some info on each of those festivals… |
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| The Edinburgh International Festival was launched in 1947. It aimed to bring the very best performing arts companies and orchestras from across the world to the Scottish capital in a gesture of post-war collaboration.
Over sixty years on, the International Festival has the same core aim, to bring together some of the best theatre, dance and opera companies, orchestras and speakers from all over the world to take part in an innovative and exciting three week programme of arts and culture. The International Festival is led and programmed by one director – Jonathan Mills – who picks themes and sets the tone for each festival and cherry picks the companies that take part. The International Festival programme consists of theatre, dance, opera, classical music and visual art, plus talks with people involved in the Festival. The EIF website is at www.eif.co.uk. |
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| In that first year, back in 1947, eight smaller theatre companies recognised that a large audience of arts fans would be pulled to Edinburgh by the International Festival. They seized on the opportunity to ‘borrow’ that audience and took over smaller venues not being used by the main festival. And so the Edinburgh Festival Fringe was born (though it was a couple of years before people started calling it that).
The Fringe grew each year until it was considerably larger than the main festival itself, but as it grew it kept the informal and slightly erratic approach that had been behind its creation in 1947, something which developed into what some people call the ‘spirit of the Fringe’ – that is that "any performer or theatre company who can raise the money and find a performance space is welcome". To this day, the Edinburgh Fringe remains unprogrammed – there is no director, board or company who says what can or can’t be performed – anything goes (within the limits of the law, obviously). Because of its open access artistic policy, pretty much any kind of show can appear in the Fringe, which means pretty much every genre is represented in one way or another. The main genres, though, are comedy, dance and physical theatre, exhibitions, music, musicals and theatre. The Fringe Society It is easy to confuse the Fringe Society with the Festival Fringe itself – but they are in reality two separate things. The Festival Fringe is an erratic, informal and intangible beast, the Fringe Society is the organisation appointed (and in part funded) by performers and promoters at the Festival Fringe to coordinate centralised activities on their behalf. The Fringe Society does not produce or promote any events (with the exception of a programme of workshops for performers and the open-mic-type stages on the Royal Mile). The Fringe Society website is at www.edfringe.com. Fringe Venues Some venues invite specific companies to perform in their spaces, while others invite anyone with a show to perform to rent space (most do a bit of both). Each venue will publish their own programme and run their own box office (some venues work together on these), in addition to the central programme and box office published and run by the Fringe Society. Venues at the Fringe vary hugely from year round theatres to grand looking churches to major concert halls to expertly converted bespoke Festival venues to back rooms in pubs. Some are very posh and plush, others less so. Others a lot less so! Some of the bigger and longer established venues enjoy a higher profile, mainly because they tend to host some of the bigger name artists and companies. These include the so called ‘big four’ – The Pleasance, Assembly, Gilded Balloon and Underbelly – as well as the ever growing empire of C Venues, and Edinburgh’s year-round new writing theatre the Traverse and year-round comedy club The Stand. Other increasingly high profile venues include those operated by the Sweet, Zoo, Space, Just The Tonic and Universal Arts teams, while Augustines, The Vault, Venue 13, Diverse Attractions, Bedlam Theatre and the Bongo Club are all established Fringe names. On top of that, each year the Free Fringe, Free Festival and Five Pound Fringe operate numerous venues each, including most of the pub venues. Festivals within the Fringe One such mini-festival is the Forest Fringe, a week long programme of comedy, music and theatre that takes place at the Forest Cafe on Bristo Place in the middle of Edinburgh’s festival month. These shows are generally not listed in the main Fringe programme. Another mini-fest (though it’s not that mini) is the Edinburgh Comedy Festival. This is actually just the name the big four Fringe venues – The Pleasance, Assembly, Gilded Balloon and Underbelly (and more recently the Just The Tonic venues too) – have given to their combined comedy programmes since 2008. This branding has proven controversial because, of course, there is a lot of comedy on in Edinburgh during the festival which is not staged at one of these venues. Also within the Fringe are the Free Fringe and the Free Festival, both of which, as their names suggest, offer a load of completely free shows (mainly comedy, though there’s some theatre too). Not all will be brilliant, but there are always some real hidden gems in amongst these two mini-festivals (and some bigger names are doing free shows these days), and with no ticket price you have nothing to lose. If you like what you get, I think its customary to throw some money into the hat at the end of the show. On the music side there is The Edge, which is where you will find most of the big name music acts, plus some newer and more local talent too. The Edge takes over a number of Edinburgh’s music venues, such as The Liquid Rooms, Cabaret Voltaire and HMV Picture House. Most Edge shows are one-offs, so do check out their programme early (this year’s it’s inside the big four’s programme). While we are on mini-festivals – you may also find that certain producers or promoters who represent a number of shows at the Fringe will publish printed programmes featuring all of their acts and give that programme a name that implies they are some sort of independent festival (some of them have used ‘Edinburgh Comedy Festival’ in the past). Basically, they’re not, and you’ll find all the shows listed in the Fringe programme too. |
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| Since 1947 a number of other festivals have been launched, all taking place in or around August alongside the International Festival and the Fringe, and each one specialising in a different genre. Those being staged this year include:
The Edinburgh Book Festival (11 Aug – 27 Aug 2012)Possibly the best literary festival on the planet, combining book readings and author-based events with debates and discussions on literary, social and political issues, involving world renowned authors, journalists and commentators. www.edbookfest.co.uk Edinburgh Art Festival (dates tbc) Bringing together art galleries from across Edinburgh, this is basically an umbrella grouping for selected exhibitions being staged by those galleries, providing an easy guide to the best visual art on offer in the Scottish capital during the Festival season. www.edinburghartfestival.com Edinburgh Military Tattoo (3 Aug – 25 Aug 2012) The British army’s contribution to the Festival – no, really – a massive show featuring piping, marching and lots of tartan. The Tattoo takes over Edinburgh Castle every August, and sells out almost as soon as tickets go on sale. www.edintattoo.co.uk The Festival Of Politics (dates tbc) Edinburgh Mela (dates tbc) In addition to that little lot there are two festivals aimed primarily at ‘trade audiences’ – ie people who work in the gaming or TV industries. The Edinburgh Interactive Festival (9 Aug – 11 Aug 2012) Edinburgh International Television Festival (dates tbc) Edinburgh also plays host to a number of other festivals that fall outside of August, details of which can be found on the Festivals Edinburgh website. Two, the Edinburgh Film Festival and Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival, used to be part of the main festival month but no longer are (though the jazz fest is still pretty close!) |
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| And as if that wasn’t enough, there’s a lot of other stuff going on in Edinburgh during August not affiliated to any of these festivals. Many pubs, clubs, bars and cafes stage special events during the Festival, and all the tourist attractions that are open in the city all year round will have extra opening hours. As far as we’re concerned, these are part of the intangible ‘Edinburgh Festival’ too.
Basically, you take all the above festivals, all the other stuff, put it altogether in one box, and that is the Edinburgh Festival. Needless to say, it is huge and, while a bit confusing, it offers simply the most exciting, diverse and eclectic mix of arts, culture and entertainment from all over the world, all in one place at one time. The Edinburgh Festival is simply the biggest and bestest festival on the planet. |
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