Every August, the entire city of Edinburgh, Scotland, gets completely taken over by the Fringe Festival, the largest arts event on the planet. It's also probably the largest standup comedy festival.
This year, there were 1,857,202 tickets sold for 42,096 performances of 2,695 shows in 279 venues. (And that's not counting the free shows, of which there are 814.)
The festival, heavily sponsored by alcohol brands such as Foster's and Deuchars, injects about £140 million into the Scottish economy annually. It's virtually impossible to get a hotel room in Edinburgh in August of you haven't booked months ahead.
We went for the last week of the Fringe and had a heck of a time. Here's what we saw.
The festival completely takes over the entire city. Edinburgh's main shopping thoroughfare, George Street, is blocked off to car traffic. This is a temporary set of women's bathrooms erected in the middle of the road.
By the beginning of August, every free space in Edinburgh becomes plastered in posters advertising Fringe events, most of which are comedy or alternative theater acts. It's impossible to see everything, and the best shows sell out ahead of time.
That requires planning. Here's the spreadsheet that my group of eight friends used to book their shows. We began work on our Fringe schedule back in February. Each show costs between £6 and £15. We saw about 23 shows in six days.
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