First time at the Fringe

Every year at the beginning of August, hordes of people make the pilgrimage to what has become the Mecca of comedy: the Edinburgh Fringe. This year was my first time. A popping of my Fringe cherry, if you will.

I’m only here for 5 days, one of a group of 13 people but I thought I’d impart some knowledge I’ve picked up from my time here for would be Fringe first-timers:

1. Wear comfortable shoes. Once you’re in Edinburgh, you don’t need any other form of transport other than your own two feet and the long walks round the city can take its toll.

2. Plan as little as possible in advance. Book anything that you might think will be sold out before but some of the best gigs I went to were ones that we either decided to go to a couple of hours before and one was decided above five minutes before it started.

3. Don’t assume that the big names will be sold out. We managed to get a small group to see Sandy Toksvig a day before her performance. Most seats are unreserved so its first come first served for where you end up sitting.

4. Don’t spend all your time together as a group. As I said earlier, I went up with 12 of my best friends but I was still glad to have some time alone and there were plenty of gigs that no one else wanted to go to.

5. Do something else. Edinburgh is a beautiful city, and one that I hadn’t visited before so I took some time out to visit some of its sites, even climbing Arthur’s Seat one morning (definitely well worth it for the views alone).