Edinburgh Fringe

Jess and I already have tickets to 7 events, we plan to see at least 4 more...and we're only going for the weekend! It is purported to be the largest arts festival in the world, and looking at the program (which looks more like a telephone directory) I believe them. So here are some official numbers:

• The Edinburgh Festival takes place for 4 weeks starting early August. 2010 will be its 64th year.
• In 1947, Edinburgh invited performers from around the world to participate in its International Festival. However, eight theatre companies turned up uninvited to take advantage of the visitors. This would later become known as the 'fringe.'
• For obvious reasons, there was great animosity between the International Festival and the fringe until the 1970's. There was also no organisation within the fringe until the late 50's, when volunteers began creating programs and providing a central booking service for the 19 companies performing. That became a professional society in 1970, when 182 companies performed.
• Today, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe features 40,254 performances of over 2,400 shows in 259 different venues, all during the month of August.
• The fringe is an unjuried festival.  That is, anyone can perform; the society does not vet any performance.  However, companies are required to register and pay a fee, around £300, to be part of the official program.  Thus, there is now a fringe of the fringe.
• Theatre was the largest genre until 2008, when it was overtaken by comedy. There are also performances in music, dance, physical theatre, opera, and children's shows. In 2009, 37% of shows were world premieres.
• In addition to the International Festival and Fringe Festival, other festivals which go on in August are the Edinburgh International Film Festival, Edinburgh Military Tattoo, Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival and Edinburgh International Book Festival.
• The combined festivals sell more than 2.5 million tickets. At its peak, there are around 1,000 performances a day.
• Edinburgh's population doubles from 500,000 to more than a million people during August.
• There are five vegetarian restaurants in Edinburgh. (No, that has nothing to do with the festival, I just thought it was interesting for a city so small.)

Take a look at the programme (pdf) -- it's mind-blowing.  (It's also 78MB so it will take a while to load.)