To Scotland and Beyond: It's Festival Time!

9 August 2013

The population of Edinburgh more than doubles* during the month of August when people from around the globe descend on the city to enjoy the Festival. There are countless performances of music, theatre, comedy, and endless combinations of the three. The street performers are out in droves along the Royal Mile and the energy is evident everywhere!

Royal Mile performers including a guy on a unicycle on a tight rope juggling knives, an escape artist, a banana on the ground, and a dancing group of musicians.

Of course, there are some quirky things about this season. First of all, the streets are crowded with tons of tourists who randomly stop in front of you for a picture or directions, causing numerous pedestrian collisions and leading to an increased walking time around town - they add almost 10 minutes a mile if you are in the busy section of town! This is magnified at street crossings where it looks less like pedestrians in a crosswalk and more like a high-stakes game of frogger. Beware: the buses do not slow down!

Tons of people in the streets enjoying the festival, but
making it hard to walk anywhere!

Venues and open-air bars pop up everywhere. Some venues are clearly marked with signs and others are more permanent fixtures in the city. Just prior to the festival, I thought that the city was starting some massive renovation project when temporary "construction fencing" went up all over town. Turns out they put fliers up on the temporary fencing. And permanent fences. And on street signs/lamp posts. And on some buildings. And they stand on the street and hand out fliers for shows (and sometimes free tickets!). You are spammed with show information at every turn and picking a good show is more about word of mouth than anything else.

Venue signs pop up in unexpected
places where you never would
have expected shows or concerts
to be held.

An example of one of the festival locations that just showed up
on the street across from my building. In previous years, the
parking lot of our building has become an open-air bar.
Fingers crossed for next year!

There's a lot of construction around town. Wait, it's just so
there's more room for festival signs!

Festival signs are EVERYWHERE. Every available space is covered.

Fences in front of historic buildings are not
immune to the power of the festival.

All street signs instantly
became advertising posts.

The shows run from 10am to midnight and the partying and drinking continues until about 5am. The two shows I booked in advance were great: NoFit State and Benny Davis: The Human Jukebox. Benny Davis is a member of the Axis of Awesome (if you haven't heard of them, check out the amazing four chord song). I've also seen a couple of free fringe (free events associated with the Fringe Festival) comedy things and a random show called "Another F$#king Variety Show" - they are averaging about 2/3 material that I liked and about 1/3 material that I wouldn't pay to see. But that's why it's a variety show and I feel like it was good to expand my horizons. I think the comedians will be funnier next year when I have a better idea of the political atmosphere here as well as the geography of the area. The one thing I did learn from the comedians: The orange girls from Essex are essentially the equivalent of the girls in Jersey Shore.

My first "knight" out at the festival :)

There's a whole month of the festival and the advice I have from the locals is to party it up the first week (all the cheap tickets and slightly less crowded) and then take a break and wait for the reviews. Later in the month, read the reviews and find some good shows and do another round at the festival. Looking forward to the end of the month and taking advantage of living in Edinburgh in August!