The Edinburgh Festival

True, the city’s many summer festivals each maintain their own identities. And yet ‘The Festival’ has stuck as a shorthand which captures the truly eclectic experience of ‘doing Edinburgh’ which has made the city’s very name synonymous with world-leading culture and performance. This book is the first to tell the complete history of the Edinburgh Festival. Arts writer David Pollock paints an extraordinary portrait of the growth, glory years and struggles of this global cultural phenomenon. He introduces a wide cast of key individuals and shows, including Fleabag, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, Billy Connolly, Emma Thompson, Stephen Fry, Joseph Beuys, The Fall and Six The Musical. The Edinburgh Festival: A Biography provides a unique perspective on the social and cultural history of Scotland and its capital in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. It will delight and intrigue all who have experience of the greatest festival in the world.

This book explores the 'culture wars' of 1945-1970 and is the first major study of the origins and development of this leading annual arts extravaganza.

'Ah! The Fringe! I can't think of a more delightful way of putting my liver, bank account, relationship, complexion, and mental stability under the greatest strain they've ever known!' Mel Giedroyc It is the world's largest arts festival, attracting everyone from student first-timers to Hollywood stars. Thrilling, inspiring and bewildering in equal measure, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe can make you a star or break your bank. So what is the secret of making it work for you? The Edinburgh Fringe Survival Guide draws on the experiences of the festival's leading figures - their disasters as well as their triumphs - to take you step by step through the process of making your show a success in the Scottish capital. From choosing a venue to keeping on top of the budget, from sorting out accommodation to securing the best press coverage, from generating word of mouth to making the most of a hit, this unique practical guide for performers, directors and producers helps you get your show the audience it deserves. Among those sharing their expert advice are playwright Simon Stephens, comedian Phil Nichol, actor Siobhan Redmond, producer Guy Masterson, Tiger Lillies front manMartyn Jacques, theatre critic Lyn Gardner, Foster's Edinburgh Comedy Award director Nica Burns, as well as the directors of all the major Fringe venues, top press officers, international promoters and insiders from the Fringe Society itself. The foreword is written by playwright Mark Ravenhill.

The Festival Cities of Edinburgh and Adelaide examines how these cities’ world-famous arts events have shaped and been shaped by their long-term interaction with their urban environments. While the Edinburgh International Festival and Adelaide Festival are long-established, prestigious events that champion artistic excellence, they are also accompanied by the two largest open-access fringe festivals in the world. It is this simultaneous staging of multiple events within Edinburgh’s Summer Festivals and Adelaide’s Mad March that generates the visibility and festive atmosphere popularly associated with both places. Drawing on perspectives from theatre studies and cultural geography, this book interrogates how the Festival City, as a place myth, has developed in the very different local contexts of Edinburgh and Adelaide, and how it is challenged by groups competing for the right to use and define public space. Each chapter examines a recent performative event in which festival debates and controversies spilled out beyond the festival space to activate the public sphere by intersecting with broader concerns and audiences. This book forges an interdisciplinary, comparative framework for festival studies to interrogate how festivals are embedded in the social and political fabric of cities and to assess the cultural impact of the festivalisation phenomenon.

Events and festivals have an increasingly vital role in our leisure lifestyles. We recognize them as part of our lives. For some, they are a very significant part of our lives. The network of festivals and events that either adorn the world now, or are planned for the future, can both serve to motivate new visits as well as enhance the lives of the people who live in – or near – the host area. They are also dynamos of cultural development, of sport knowledge and excellence and sophisticated consumption. Such dynamic outputs require dynamic inputs. This book looks at different event and festival cases and forwards separate and current managerial implications and responses to these, with reference to the UK, America and Australia. Both up-to-date and forward thinking, the managerial themes addressed are: Creative Management, Festival and Event audience development, Culture and Community, Event and Festival evaluation. Festival and event types include sport events, art festivals, community events, live music and culinary extravaganza. This book was previously published as a special issue of Managing Leisure: An International Journal.

This book explores how festivals and events affect urban places and public spaces, with a particular focus on their role in fostering inclusion. The ‘festivalisation’ of culture, politics and space in cities is often regarded as problematic, but this book examines the positive and negative ways that festivals affect cities by examining festive spaces as contested spaces. The book focuses on Western European cities, a particularly interesting context given the social and cultural pressures associated with high levels of in-migration and concerns over the commercialisation and privatisation of public spaces. The key themes of this book are the quest for more inclusive urban spaces and the contested geographies of festival spaces and places. Festivals are often used by municipal authorities to break down symbolic barriers that restrict who uses public spaces and what those spaces are used for. However, the rise of commercial festivals and ticketed events means that they are also responsible for imposing physical and financial obstacles that reduce the accessibility of city parks, streets and squares. Alongside addressing the contested effects of urban festivals on the character and inclusivity of public spaces, the book addresses more general themes including the role of festivals in culture-led regeneration. Several chapters analyse festivals and events as economic development tools, and the book also covers contested representations of festival cities and the ways related images and stories are used in place marketing. A range of cases from Western Europe are used to explore these issues, including chapters on some of the world’s most significant and contested festival cities: Venice, Edinburgh, London and Barcelona. The book covers a wide range of festivals, including those dedicated to music and the arts, but also events celebrating particular histories, identities and pastimes. A series of fascinating cases are discussed - from the Venice Biennale and Dublin Festival of History, to Rotterdam’s music festivals and craft beer festivals in Manchester. The diverse and innovative qualities of the book are also evident in the range of urban spaces covered: obvious examples of public spaces – such as parks, streets, squares and piazzas – are addressed, but the book includes chapters on enclosed public spaces (e.g., libraries) and urban blue spaces (waterways) too. This reflects the interpretation of public spaces as socio-material entities: they are produced informally through their use (including for festivals and events), as well as through their formal design and management.

An up-to-date, contextualized assessment of the impact of the 'festivalization' of culture around the world.

Where To Go When: Great Britain & Ireland is the essential holiday planner, unearthing the best of every region of Great Britain & Ireland season by season. Whatever you're looking for- from a family seaside holiday to a long hike in beautiful countryside- Where To Go When: Great Britain & Ireland suggests suitable locations and the best time of year to visit each one. Written by a team of travel experts and with a foreword by popular BBC1 and Countryfile TV presenter Julia Bradbury, this book combines informative and inspirational narrative with truly sumptuous photography bringing each destination to life. It boasts six different holiday themes from History and Heritage and Wildlife to Festivals and Events ensuring that there is something for everybody. Visit Chepstow Castle in summer or revel at the Galway Oyster Festival in Autumn, with regional listings and practical advice on local transport, hotel and restaurant options finding your ideal getaway is made simple. The perfect inspirational book for anyone planning a day-trip, a longer holiday or seeking out hidden gems on their doorstep.

Abstract: The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is the world's largest arts festival. Its success has inspired imitation and so fringe theatre festivals have proliferated around the world. This dissertation is not a history of the Fringe, but an examination of those structures of the Edinburgh Fringe which have allowed it to continue to grow and succeed. To understand how the Edinburgh Fringe works one must understand that no performer is invited, those performers who come to Edinburgh are not given any financial assistance by the Fringe and the productions are housed in temporary performance spaces. There is no central governing body at the Edinburgh Fringe. The Fringe Society coordinates rather than coerces by providing needed services to performers and venue managers. The importance of these basic structures is often neglected. Both in Edinburgh and beyond three myths exercise as much influence as an understanding of these structures. The term "myth" is used to describe three ideas which are not factually correct, but which serve a useful purpose in promoting fringe theatre in both Edinburgh and beyond. The most important of these myths holds that the Edinburgh Fringe is dominated by new and edgy work. This last myth is so foundational it has come to be incorporated in the very definition of fringe theatre. Each of these myths has had an impact on non Edinburgh Regional Fringes, few of which closely imitate the structure of the Edinburgh Fringe. The most misunderstood and arguably the most important of the structures which have ensured the Edinburgh Fringe's continued successes are the entrepreneurial venues administered by independent venue managers. This dissertation scrutinizes the antipathy some at Edinburgh have for the entrepreneurial venues. It then investigates in some detail the risks and labors undertaken by managers of venues large and small to demonstrate how these venues operate and why the managers take on such a demanding task.

The growth of events and festivals has been significant over the last decade and a wide range of skills are essential to ensure those events are successful. This requirement has been instrumental in stimulating the creation of more tertiary education opportunities to develop events management knowledge. As the discipline develops, knowledge requires direction in order to understand the changing advances in society. This is the first book to take a futures approach to understanding event management. A systematic and pattern-based understanding is used to determine the likelihood of future events and trends. Using blue skies scenarios to provide a vision of the future of events, not only capturing how the events industry is changing but also important issues that will affect events now as well as the future. Chapters include analysis of sustainability, security, impacts of social media, design at both mega event and community level and review a good range of different types of events from varying geographical regions. A final section captures the contributions of each chapter through the formation of a conceptual map for a future research agenda. Written by leading academics in the field, this ground breaking book will be a valuable reference point for educators, researchers and industry professionals.

Includes entries for maps and atlases.

Alphabetically arranged, cross-referenced, and indexed, the entries in this encyclopaedia set out in detail all aspects of Edinburgh, bringing together information and anecdotes from a wide range of sources. It looks at the city's history, social pastimes, institutions, buildings, monuments, media, industries, and people and events.