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| *Travel Tips>>>Edinburgh Travel Tips |
Have you ever visited Edinburgh Fringe Festival? |
Travel Info I would be excited to hear about your personal experience... about everything from accomodation, food and drinks, best performances you've seen and socializing to all your emotions after the event and funny stories that might have happened while you were there... Travel Tips I live in Edinburgh and it is a great city to live in year round the people are friendly and sometimes the weather can behave it self long enough to be nice enough when people can go and sit in Princes Street Gardens or in the meadows. The month of August is Festival time and Edinburgh feels like carnival city its fantastic and the whole is packed especially the High Street and the Mound filled with street entertainers and people selling their merchandise like home made jewelery and paintings. I have been to see a couple of shows I usually try to and see at least one or two shows a year last year we went to see The Lady boys of Bangkok because each year they always get such good reviews so we decided to go and see them and we weren't disappointed they were really entertaining without being too smutty I would recommend you going to see that show if they come back to the festival. We also went to see a Scottish comedian called Craig Hill he was hilarious and looks rather sexy in a designer kilt for a gay comedian!?!?! lol. The year before we went to see a show called Viva Venezuela which was a show telling the history of Venezuela through music and dance it was a really good show well worth going to see. Also if this is your first visit to Edinburgh I would definately recommend you going to see The Edinburgh Military Tattoo they have performers from all over the world performing in the show it is definately the number one show of all the festival. Source(s): have a look at the Edinburgh Festival website for more information during the festival Other Travel Tips The Edinburgh Fringe (officially the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, commonly just The Fringe) is the world鈥檚 largest arts festival. It takes place in Scotland's capital during three weeks every August. Introduction The Fringe is regarded as being part of the Edinburgh Festival. In fact, there is no single festival of that name, the term is simply a shorthand way of referring to all of the discrete festivals which take place in Edinburgh from late July through to early September. They include: the Edinburgh International Festival (started 1947), the Fringe itself (1947), the Edinburgh International Film Festival (1947), the Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival (1979), Edinburgh International Book Festival (1983) and the Edinburgh People's Festival (2002). In addition, there is the ever-popular (and audible to other festival-goers) Edinburgh Military Tattoo every evening on the Castle Esplanade during August. It matters little to the festival-goer which events are part of which festival, except that each festival has a separate programme (and website) and sells tickets only for its own events. In addition to the summer festivals, Edinburgh plays host to a range of other festivals throughout the rest of the year. The Fringe is so called after Robert Kemp, a Scottish journalist, wrote during the second Edinburgh International Festival in 1948: 鈥楻ound the fringe of official Festival drama, there seems to be more private enterprise than before 鈥?I am afraid some of us are not going to be at home during the evenings!鈥? He was describing those groups who were putting on performances that were not part of the "official festival". Animosity between the two festivals was particularly prevalent in the 1950s, 1960s and into the 1970s, but it has gradually disappeared, apart from the occasional flare-up. In particular, periodic attempts by the official Festival to compete with the Fringe were stopped by Brian McMaster when he became the director of the International Festival in 1991. It is somewhat ironic that their most successful attempt to compete, Beyond The Fringe back in 1960, is now wrongly thought of by many people as a Fringe show. The Fringe mostly attracts events from the performing arts, particularly drama and (the big growth area in recent years) comedy, although dance and music also figure significantly. Theatre events can range from the classics of ancient Greece, Shakespeare and Samuel Beckett, through to new works. However, there is no selection committee to approve the entries, so any type of event is possible: the Fringe is well-known as a showcase for experimental works which might not be admitted to a more formal festival. The organisers are the Festival Fringe Society: they publish the programme, sell tickets and offer advice to performers from the Fringe office on the Royal Mile. History The Fringe started when eight theatre companies turned up uninvited to the first year of the Edinburgh International Festival in 1947. They aimed to take advantage of the large theatre crowds and showcase their own, more alternative, theatre. It initially got most of its support from University of Edinburgh students who set up drop-in centres and subsequently provided a central booking service. In 1958 the Fringe became more organised with the "Festival Fringe Society" producing up the first guide to all Fringe shows. A constitution was drawn up in which the policy of not vetting or censoring shows was set out. In 1959, 19 companies attended the Fringe. In following years there were problems as competition increased and the Fringe became too big for students and volunteers to deal with. In 1969 the Society became a limited company and in 1971 it employed its first administrator. Between 1976 and 1981 the number of companies performing rose from 182 to 494. In 1988 the Society moved to its current headquarters on the Royal Mile. Since then the society has increased the amount of technology used by introducing computerised ticketing and in 2000 the Fringe became the first arts organisation in the world to sell tickets online in real time. In 2005, over 1,335,000 were sold for Fringe performances and the Fringe Society now plans years in advance. Much of the history of the Fringe has become obscure in popular terms but there is general agreement that the artistic credentials of the Fringe were established by the creators of the Traverse Theatre, John Calder, Jim Haynes and Richard Demarco in 1963. While their original objective was to maintain something of the Festival atmosphere in Edinburgh all year round, the Traverse quickly and regularly presented cutting edge drama to an international audience on both the Edinburgh International Festival and on the Fringe during August. It set a standard to which other companies on the Fringe aspired. The Traverse is occasionally referred to as 'The Fringe venue that got away', reflecting its current status as a permanent and integral part of the Edinburgh Arts scene. However, it continues to form the bedrock of drama on the Fringe at festival time. The Fringe Today The Fringe has grown dramatically over the 60 years of its existence. Statistics for the 2006 festival which are published on the official website concluded that it was the largest festival on record: there were 28,014 performances of 1867 different shows in 261 venues, while ticket sales reached 1.5 million, the fourth year in a row that they had exceeded 1 million. Of the 1800+ shows, theatre continues to be the largest genre. Comedy, the major growth area over the last 20 years, comes next. Other genres include: Dance & Physical Theatre, Music and Children's shows. Shows can be sampled without having to visit them all. The best opportunity to find out what shows you might want to see is afforded by "Fringe Sunday", which is held on the first Sunday of the festival when many companies, 200 estimated for 2006, perform all or part of their show for free on The Meadows. Alternatively, on any day during the festival the pedestrianised area of the High Street around St. Giles Cathedral and the Fringe Office becomes the focal point for theatre companies to hand out flyers, perform scenes from their shows, and attempt to sell tickets. http://www.answers.com/edinburgh+fringe?... |
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