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 is an array of events and free shows on the Fringe or at other Edinburgh Festivals.
Free Shows at Edinburgh's Festivals
- Forest Fringe Cornucopia of shimmering free-thinking, free-wheeling shows. And free, too.
- The Free Fringe Thousands of free shows over August
- Fringe on the High Street Street performances every day on Royal Mile.
- Edinburgh Festivals' Cavalcade Procession of all Edinburgh's Festivals
- Edinburgh Art Festival Many exhibitions and events are free.
- Edinburgh Festival Fireworks The Edinburgh International Festival's grand finale.
(Note: Fringe Sunday, one of the headline free Fringe events, was cancelled in 2009 due to lack of sponsorship, and will not be returning in August 2010.)
You wont find this in the Edinburgh Fringe programme, but there's almost always something on at the "artist-led", two-week long Forest Fringe, in the Forest Cafe. Now in its fourth year, it's experimentatal, fun, interactive, and free. Your festival isn't complete without dropping in at least once over the course of the festival.
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. The events are usually in pubs or clubs. Sadly, beer is not free as well.
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.
Peter Buckley Hill's Free Fringe (website)
Looking at the list of PBH's venues can you detect a theme? A daily dose of laughs with your beer. This 15th year of the Free Fringe, PBH promises more spoken word, theatre, and live performance. The Free Fringe promises "more than 3,400 free performances of over 200 shows scheduled over 22 stages."
The PBH Free Fringe venues are:
- Canon's Gait Bar
- The White Horse
- Royal Mile Tavern
- Whistebinkies
- Globe Bar
- Banshee Labyrinth
- Bannermans
- Cabaret Voltaire
- Bar 50
- Sin Club and Lounge
- Opium
- Base Nightclub
- Beehive Inn
- Fingers Piano Bar
- Dragonfly Cocktail Bar
- Kiwi Bar @ Walkabout
- Voodoo Rooms
The Laughing Horse - Free Fringe Festival (website)
The other Free Fringe fest goes under the Laughing Horse banner. It was hit in 2010 by the last-minute withdrawl of a major sponsor, but Laughing Horse still plans on hosting "at least 293 shows across 22 stages in 14 venues – with more last minute shows being programmed to fill the last empty spaces in the venues". That's an increase from last year's 230 shows.
The shows cover the gamut of live performance - comedy, cabaret, live music, theatre - in 14 venues:
- The Argyle
- Counting House
- Cafe Renroc
- City Cafe
- Edinburgh City FC
- Espionage
- The Hive
- The Metropole
- Jekyll & Hyde
- Meadow Bar
- Reverie
- The Newsroom
- Three Sisters Pub
- The Pear Tree