Edinburgh Fringe Festival
is the biggest festival of its kind in the world. 3.5K yes thousand shows from all over the world. Music, dance, stand-up, comedy, serious, good, bad, sad, dreadful its all here. The Edinburgh Fringe Festival is the most amazing and unique festival of its kind and although many have tried to imitate it, none have been successful. Amazing, outstanding, unique they are my words to describe it.
Guide to surviving the Edinburgh Fringe Festival
Get yourself some decent accommodation.
Plan ahead, book early
Hotels and hostels fill up some years in advance and once you fall in love with this festival you will understand the repeat customers. Ideally find yourself a place walking distance to the city centre and save on public transport and taxi’s.
Budget 
Decide your budget. Edinburgh isn’t a cheap city and if sterling isn’t your currency then it can be an expensive city to visit. However there are great bargins to be had if you do your research.
Transport
if your not staying locally then the train system is excellent, however it finishes early. You can save yourself some money here also by not travelling during peak hours. Weekly tickets are available but not weekend passes like other European cities. Check this site for discounts https://www.scotrail.co.uk/
I choose to house sit for 3 weeks allowing me to enjoy the festival and have accommodation for free in exchange for pet care.
Find your feet in the city and get your bearings while taking a free walking tour. http://www.newedinburghtours.com/daily-tours/new-edinburgh-free-tour.
Tickets for shows. There are so many shows happening and they are occurring all over the city constantly. There were many I missed as they were at the same time. Nothing you can do to avoid this if you are only going for a week or weekend. My advice is get the free Edinburgh Fringe App for you phone and you can stay up to date. Watch out also, shows get cancelled at the last minute if not enough people show up. Then can completely disappear from the schedule without warning if the actors or group decided its too costly to continue. There are discounts available if you qualify for concessions so check. Also if you are at the fringe with a friend it is worth buying a “friends of the fringe” membership type and you can get 2 for 1 tickets to lots of shows. There are free catalogs all over the city to help you but by favourite was the website. Register, save your favourites and go from there.
