Scotland: The Fringe Festival

The Scottish capital city of Edinburgh is a fantastic place to visit during the spring and summer months. The city has a remarkable variety of vistas ranging from the green hills, the blue sea, the medieval buildings, the narrow passageways and its Royal Mile. Coupled with its very interesting history, it makes for a top destination in Europe. Around August, the scene heats up even more as many visitors and performers descend on the city for a very cool event.

For 4 weeks every year, the city of Edinburgh hosts a unique festival called The Fringe. Danyelle and I were visiting Tammy and Xavier around this time, and they happen to live on the outskirts of the city, so we got to attend the festival. Imagine thousands of performances ranging from theater, comedy, dance, circus, cabaret, musicals and street performers, happening during the day and night in over 300 venues and streets around the city… quite exciting for sure!

This is a statue of Adam Smith — Google says he’s the father of modern economics thinking and also a philosopher. The St. Giles Cathedral is his backdrop.

This charming lad gives us another view of the David Hume statue.

This year was the 70^th anniversary of The Fringe so the organizers used a light, music, and projection show to celebrate the festival’s history through the years, starting with its remarkable birth story. After the second world war in 1947, Scotland was set to host its first International Festival in Edinburgh. The idea was to provide a creative venue to bring Europe back together following the war. A group of uninvited theater troupes showed up to perform and were turned away. They decided to perform anyway — on the fringe of the festival. The festival has successfully embraced an open access policy ever since. From that humble beginning, it is now the largest performing arts festival in the world and has more than 200 sister festivals around the world. Impressive. 

This charming lad gives us another view of the David Hume statue.

This is a statue of Adam Smith — Google says he’s the father of modern economics thinking and also a philosopher. The St. Giles Cathedral is his backdrop.

Unfortunately, I had never heard of this festival before we arrived but I quickly became well informed on all the ins and outs. It turns out that The Fringe is Europe’s largest arts festival! The artists range from total unknowns to big names in their genres. The Scottish festival reminded me a lot of SXSW that takes place in Austin, TX every year. Of course there are some major differences that should be noted. There are a lot of Irish, Scottish, British, and Asian comedians that are very hard to understand when sober and almost impossible to understand after several pints. The main demographic in attendance are Europeans and Asians. There is a sense of randomness or, perhaps, controlled chaos in the acts and talent that I haven’t experienced at other festivals. The show is more focused on theater, comedy, and dance, and it feels a lot more free flow than SXSW. Check out some of their performances:

The comedians brought their most savage material on Trump and the state of our political situation in the US. They also joked about the Brits, Brexit, Irish drinking, etc. Undoubtedly, the part that I enjoyed the most was the street performances. There were over 15 happening every hour down the Royal Mile every day. The performances ranged from acrobats, fire breathers, musicians, magicians and several others that I didn’t exactly understand what their life skill was.  The music on the street was outstanding, ranging from guitars and violins to full groups. Check out some of their tunes:

Overall, it was such a fun festival that contained so much diversity, fun and a decent amount of craziness. Add in a little (maybe more than a little) rain, several pints of beer, a lot of laughter, and many off the wall performances and you have the Fringe Festival. If you are in Scotland around August, this should be a must see for you! Take a look at their website for more information https://www.edfringe.com/experience/what-is-the-fringe-festival