The Edinburgh Festival
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-> The Edinburgh FestivalThe world's largest celebration of the arts, the Edinburgh Festival is a massive explosion of cultural and artistic expression, with every available performance space in August - from the grandest concert halls to pub courtyards - helping play host to a packed programme of drama, comedy, performance, music and film. All over the city the streets fill with buskers, craft stalls, tourists, celebrities, performers, media types and festival-goers; posters plaster every vertical space and the centre of town takes on a slightly surreal, vital atmosphere. The Edinburgh Festival is actually an umbrella term which encompasses different festivals taking place at around the same time. The principal events are the International Festival and the much larger Festival Fringe, but there the are also film, book, and jazz and blues festivals, the Military Tattoo and the Edinburgh Mela.
August is when most things happen. The jazz and blues festival occupies the first week of August; the Fringe and the Tattoo run for the next three weeks, culminating on the last weekend of the month; the International Festival runs over the last two weeks of August and the first week of September; the film and book festivals occupy the last two weeks of August; and the Mela is held on the first weekend in September.
The sheer volume of the Festival's output can be bewildering: it can be a struggle to find accommodation, get hold of the tickets, book a table in a restaurant or simply get from one side of town to another; you can end up seeing something truly dire, or something mind-blowing, and most people inevitably try to do too much. The unpredictable nature of the event is one of its greatest charms, so be prepared for - and enjoy - the unexpected. For year-round up-to-the-minute information, check out www.edinburghfestivals.co.uk.
In addition to each festival's own programme, various publications give full information about what's on day by day. Every day the Fringe Office publishes The Guide, giving a chronological listing of virtually every Fringe show scheduled for that day. It's available free from the Office and hundreds of other spots around Edinburgh. Of the local newspapers, the best coverage is in The Scotsman, which issues an excellent daily Festival supplement; their reviews and star-rating system carry a lot of weight. The List, a locally produced arts and entertainment guide, comes out weekly during the Festival and manages to combine comprehensive coverage with a reliably on-the-pulse sense of what's hot and what's not.
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