Edinburgh Festival Free Shows
Lack of money should be no obstacle to partaking of the cultural feeding frenzy in Edinburgh in August. Each year there are more shows and more free shows on the Fringe or other Edinburgh Festivals.
Free Shows
- Edinburgh Festivals' Cavalcade
- Fringe Sunday
- The Free Fringe (see below)
- Edinburgh Art Festival Many exhibitions and events are free.
- Edinburgh Festival Fireworks The festival finale.
Edinburgh's Free Fringe
There are two rival organisations who have taken on the mantle of the "Free Fringe": the Laughing Horse and Peter Buckley Hill's Free Fringe Comedy.
Free tickets can be booked in advance through the Fringe Box Office, but you can often catch a show simply by rolling up to the venue.
The Laughing Horse - Free Fringe Festival
The bigger of the free fringe fests with 158 shows (up from 139 last year) covering the gamut of live performance - comedy, cabaret, live music, theatre - in 8 venues (down from 10 last year).
- The Argyle (venue 353)
- Counting House (venue 170)
- Edinburgh City FC (venue 164)
- Espionage (venue 185)
- Jekyll & Hyde (venue 259)
- Meadow Bar (venue 264)
- Meridian (venue 305)
- Pear Tree
Peter Buckley Hill's Free Fringe Comedy
There are venues - all bars - offering a daily dose of laughs with your beer. 120 free shows in total can be found at these venues:
- The Mercat Bar (venue 282)
- Voodoo Bar (venue 62)
- Dragonfly Cocktail Bar (venue 63)
- Beehive Inn (venue 178)
- Nicol Edwards Pub (venue 156)
- White Horse Bar (venue 296)
- Canon's Gait Bar (venue 78)
- Mad Dogs (venue 368)
- The Standing Order (venue 64)
- The Phoenix (venue 286)


