Getting ready for EDINBURGH FRINGE 2024: How to plan, what to expect, local's tips

hello my peeps welcome to my annual video about Fringe this year I am bringing it to you much sooner than normal because in the past years some people were a bit cross with me because I brought the video about Fringe when Fringe was already on and I think that a lot of you have questions about planning for Fringe and a lot of you want to visualize what you should prepare for of course for that I would also recommend going back to some of my older French videos like this one or this one uh just kind of to check out what Fringe looks like especially if this is going to be your first time ever uh but if you don't have time you can just stick with me for this video we're going to be talking about what there is to look forward to what are some key themes also how accessible Fringe is but not to forget what always have on you when you're having uh your best Fringe time and some other tips and insights that I think will be very helpful for anyone who is planning their first ever Fringe Festival or anyone who maybe was here a couple of years ago but it's been a while and maybe they need a little refresher and of course everyone who is simply planning to come to Edinburgh or Scotland in August and Fringe and the whole festival season just happens to be kind of incidental to it all because I have seen a lot of people who simply come to Edinburgh in August not realizing just how much of a chaos this whole thing brings into just everyday existence in this city the reason why this video is coming out now is that about a week ago The Fringe Bible came out ASMR but before we talk about it some more I just want to share some interesting facts about Fringe 2024 this year there's going to be 3,000 317 shows in total those will be seen over 262 different venues in this town and out of that almost 40% is comedy about 27% is theater so uh the less fun sibling of comedy and uh just over 10% is musical performances and you're probably thinking to yourself like there's some um some percentages unaccounted for and those are the other categories as you can tell here in the program each one of these uh color schemes represents a different type of performance also what is very cool is that almost 350 shows are a part of the free Fringe so you know absolutely free apart from anything you'd like to donate and nearly 600 are listed as pay what you can or pay what you want the wonderful French people also point out some key themes every year this year we have a couple one of them is climate and sustainability uh one of the shows that I noticed that kind of plays with that theme is one about an immortal jellyfish trying to find love while the end of the world is happening uh so that's interesting um another theme is sport um I didn't think I would like any of the sport themed shows at least like not on paper but one of them is uh one where wrestlers Reen Nordic mythology um I think I will be seeing that that sounds amazing then we also have the theme of cooking and world heritage uh for that you can visit let's say uh Shakespeare for breakfast for pentameter puns and pastries another one is the female experience for the this one uh let me recommend a show that I've seen before but it is a French Premiere this is my friend's show it's called burnout it's coming all the way from Prague it's kind of about the state of modern dating and I've been out of that Marketplace for almost 13 years now so uh you would think that it's not going to be relatable to me but it was fantastic last last time I saw it so I can't wait to see it again next theme I also have a personal tip for four this is neurodiversity and neurodiverse Leed Works uh I believe that this theme was present last year as well and I do have a friend uh Nicole you probably remember I did a little kind of behind the scenes with a French artist video with her last year this is it uh go watch it because I think it's really fascinating to see what it's like to actually be a French artist anyway go watch that but also go get tickets for her follow-up show the original was called why am I like this this one is called why am I still like this and it is continuation of her work about lived experience as a woman with abhd so if you yourself identify as that or you have friends and family who do have ADHD this might really help to broaden your horizons and your understanding of those people who presumably you care about in love okay now let's dive into some questions you might have about Fringe and the practicalities of it so first up let's go back to the Fringe guide uh I'm always so excited when this comes out and a lot of people always ask me wait where did you get this like how do I get this how do I get my pause on this and myself I basically always go to the water zones on Princess Street um the French website does have a little map and apparently the amount of places where you can get this kind of like goes up as you get closer to the actual French dates which is between 2nd and 26th of August just in case you missed it on the program um you can also get them in lot of central like smaller tesos but water sense is good for this because they also have a lot of programs printed out programs for the other festivals like the Book Festival and the um Edinburgh International Festival you can also however Go On The Fringe website and actually order one of these online it does take week or two to have this delivered um so if you want to have a lot of time to peruse I would recommend doing that like right now now as you're watching this but do you actually need it well I would say uh despite obviously many of us now have like an environmental anxiety um and this is a lot of paper I get that you might not want to just like go for this straight away but this is going to be your friend for the whole like 3 weeks especially you know if you're staying for 3 weeks many of you will probably stay for shorter than that but if you do have the opportunity to get this before the festival starts you're probably going to have a much better time going through this like flipping through the pages looking for shows that look interesting to you then if you are kind of only limiting yourself to either the app or the web and if it's your first one then it's also a souvenir you should keep it forever are there any shows I shouldn't Miss I think this is a tricky question because many people will tell you that's not what Fringe is about but there are a couple of you know like celebrity comedians who are coming over and you might want to know about them so I will mention them for example we have Sue Perkins we have Mish Kumar uh we have Miriam margal and Adam K all of those people are coming over usually those big names are playing for like a shorter amount of time so if any of these people fall into like your bucket of people you just like must see then you should get the tickets as sap but in general like if someone is that well known you know that you will be able to get lot of their performances you know accessible even through like like streaming or just online on YouTube uh so in a way seeing those smaller acts it's a lot more special because and like especially if it's like an international act you might not be able to access their work anywhere else but on Fringe and also a little Fringe bonus for me is that I always get excited about this uh like unlike when let's say um Taylor Swift came for her concert during her er- tour you know two weeks ago um and I don't really think she was like doing anything in Edinburgh I think a lot of people made like jokes about it like memes but I don't think that she was actually like out and about in Edinburgh which is understandable I think she would just probably get like jumped by the mobs so like that's understandable when it comes to a lot of like especially like UK based actors or like smaller comedians who might not even have a show at The Fringe you will see lot of like famous faces usually not like extremely famous but someone who you've seen in a movie or like a very popular TV shows you just run into them during The Fringe and they're just having a great time just like you are they are kind of like being a part of the whole like cultural mange and I love that so you know if if you meet someone maybe don't bother them too much so they can actually enjoy Fringe just like you're trying to but um you know this is probably hypoc critical of me because I know that there is a couple of people who if I ran into during The Fringe I would absolutely bother them like I would bother them hard so how do I find good shows there are pretty much three good strategies for finding good shows first one um this is my favorite but I think that this one works the best if you're a local or if you're someone who kind of lives in a in a short vicinity from Edinburgh so usually it works great if uh you just do have a lot of time and a lot of access to Edinburgh and Fritch and all the other festivals which is embracing the chaos walk into the city center and just exist there and like let people come to you because performers and like leaflets will come up to you and try to sell you their shows and in my experience you can from that interaction already tell if that show is going to be your Vibe or you know maybe you will just really like the person and even if what they do in their show doesn't sound interesting maybe now you just like like this person and you want to support them with a fiber strategy number two is getting you know like knees deep into this guide and kind of going after things that you're like interested in like themes um so you know for example for me I often go through this and I find like Dungeons and dragon stuff or like video game stuff or just kind of like movie spoofs I really enjoy those you know if if you've been around this channel you know that I love dream gun they are after last year when they were not on The Fringe they are coming back they're doing Dracula which I'm so excited for I'm definitely like after I make this video I am off to the French website and I'm getting my Dracula tickets oh no now I just kind of like dxed myself if you want to say hi go see Dracula uh from dream gun because I think they're only playing that on one one date I literally just like randomly open the guide and found a show that's called life manga this is familyfriendly too so it's not going to get too weird um unlike my actual manga collection anyway yeah so as you can see this is just full of cool stuff just like think about your interests think about like what sort of theme you'd be into find yourself a couple of shows I think this is a great way of doing it if you also want to get some cheapo tickets more on that later I'm going to get back to how to get cheaper tickets and strategy number three is uh just wait for the reviews to roll in I think this one is great if you're coming maybe in like the second or third third of Fringe um because at that point you already know you will notice that a lot of the street posters will now have the reviews over them and of course you know there's going to be reviews online things like that like at that point it will become very easy to sus out what are the like the big shows for for this season the things that you know it's really hard to tell beforehand so you do have to come a bit later and kind of you know either just like look at the posters or ask people like people will often be able to tell you like what is the like groundbreaking thing this season if you're coming earlier then you are the trend Setter that's exciting too is there anything new at The Fringe In 2024 compared to last year so I haven't noticed that many things that are new compared to last year um things even in the program and kind of generally how they work and how tickets are bought seem to be pretty much the same um now Fringe has its own app I do recommend getting it because you will be able to kind of have a compilation of all of your tickets in there um but that obviously every year gets like a bit of a facelift it gets some extra features I believe this year they are bringing in a new feature that kind of lets you like shake your phone and you get a random random show recommended to you which um is like top tier chaos and you know that I do like the chaotic approach to Fringe so in a way I think that that's them knowing Their audience just like go for something completely random I will probably try that there's also like a small number of new venues uh from the top of my head I can I can remember like the the number 11 prery just of London Road is now a venue you and I think that someone on buluk street has a show that takes place in a bathtub and it's like a one person Audience Show I don't know if that should really count as a venue but it was listed on the press release so someone's bathtub is a new venue for 2024 okay so I have been hinting at how to save money I have kind of mentioned some of the ways but I didn't go much in depth which is what I'm going to do now okay so first of all there are plenty of free and pay what you want shows those are obviously the cheapest option I think that if you have a lot of time but maybe not enough money I think the free Fringe can be a really fun way of enjoying the the atmosphere um also you will find that lot of the shows especially the ones that are either kind of focusing on like the first half of the festival or the whole festival do actually start before the festival starts so you will have some preview shows those tend to happen on uh 31st of July and like the 1st of August so those two days before the official start of Fringe and um usually you get like 30% cheaper tickets for that um I would say if you do that uh it is now your responsibility to write a review for those people especially if you like them um so so yeah uh with great prices comes great responsibility then I believe that's a weekend on the 5ifth and 6th those are two days where you can get the two for one tickets so if you're here around the start do take advantage of that because it will kind of also create a bit more Buzz around some of these shows and after the 6th so from the 7eventh onwards there's also going to be the half price hot this is at the old assembly Clos Fringe box office and every day there will be thousands of tickets at half price so this is also great for anyone who perhaps has more time and uh flexibility I think that if you're just kind of out and about and maybe you have like a free afternoon um you just grabb a drink and maybe like maybe the weather is not great just you know pop into there get yourself a ticket for something and it's probably going to be like you know four to six quid and that's that's pretty good and of course another thing you can enjoy for free is the street events and there's a plenty of those it's one of those quintessential French things that you're walking up uh Royal mile kind of like the the upper part of it and uh you just get to watch a lot of performers um musicians and like jugglers magicians um all of that uh just kind of like among all the leaf letters it's uh it's again beautiful chaos it can be overwhelming it's not something you want to do every day but uh it's there so yeah and it's free it's good for photography I would recommend if you're doing some photography then that's a great place to do it as long as you don't mind that people will probably be bumping into you now how accessible is fringe um I was actually pleasantly surprised to see that almost 60% of all of the performances are wheelchair accessible it is surprising especially when you realize just how freaking medieval the whole area of especially Old Town can be so one thing is that the event spaces might be accessible but then some areas are not the most friendly um the French headquarters also offers sensory packs so for anyone who might get overwhelmed or someone who might be seeking some extra sensory stimulation uh they will have packs with like ear Defenders and like fidget toys things like that and one thing that I noticed recently is that especially for the ones of you who also have like social anxiety and maybe you are avoiding some of the comedy shows because you're afraid of um audience interaction and I get that um I'm in the same boat with you um I noticed that lately when you're being leafleted you can either ask the people or they will themselves kind of warn you I like that I like that sometimes they say like there's some audience interaction and uh if you do want to be a part of that sit here and here and if you want to avoid that sit like on the side and on the back because they know that they're just like not going to pick someone from those areas and I find that really good there is a bit of a warning and I think that nowadays it is completely fine to ask about it too now um let me grab a thing eh if things like this are a worry for you I also recommend you bring your sunflower lanyard um if you're not from the UK this is a part of a hidden disability scheme so basically the idea is that whatever um physical or mental health disability you might need some special allowances for uh this is to signal to other people that that's the case um you can also obviously get some sort of little card on it that will be more specific about your disability but also even if you don't have anything on it people will kind of like you know clog that and know that you might need extra time or you might not want to be a part of um the audience interaction if you are local you can order these for like a Fiverr and if you're not local I would still recommend looking into getting one online um if you feel like you might need it these are also really handy for like airports um trains anything like that uh they are widely sort of understood into UK so yeah get your lanyard Al I've read that uh there's a couple of street performances where there are British sign language interpreters joining in um I do realize that if you're from abroad that might not be quite good enough for you but uh just so you know if you do understand British sign language then uh look those up is there anything I should bring with me to a French outing okay so outside of things that are very specific to you which I can't really give you tips on I would say me personally but I think that this is actually pretty Universal like it's August everyone's already warm and these venues they get hot like they are small you know you stick 100 people in there it gets busy you know people are laughing and already kind of like warm there's a lot of body heat coming out of them um so I think that it's really good to always have some water and a fan on you maybe a paper fan over like an electric fan just so you don't create too much like noise like that might go against the show I guess depends on the show but still I think that a paper fan which takes up like minimal space anyway and a water bottle are two things that I would definitely bring don't forget that around Edinburgh there's many outlets for free Scottish water which we all know is the most delicious of waters so um you know this is your reminder to taste test it if you're not local yummy also especially if you're planning to go to some of the performances that are part of the free Fringe it's good to have a little bit of cash just so you know you can actually tip the performers after the show um often they do have card readers these days I mean you know it would be somewhat stupid for them not to but there might still be times when that happens so I think that if you want to be super polite have like a you know couple of fibers on you or something like that and I would also really recommend having like a small foldable picnic sheet you know like one of those kind of plastic Japanese style ones because those take no space at all they're essentially plastic but quite large um so if you have one of those on you you will maximize the amount of just space you can spend time at because it does get busy so especially kind of during The peo Fringe it can be a daunting task to like find some space to to sit and eat or drink um so having a little bit of your own space that you can like take to a park especially after it's been raining which honestly is most of the time uh is really practical so that would be another one of my Pro tips how to plan a fringe day well okay two things to keep in mind first one do not underestimate just how much longer Fringe makes it to get from point A to B even if you're kind of like mostly local or even if you've been to Edinburgh before in August around the city center so like around the sort of like wider area where French shows take place it can take you know like 30 40% more time to get from point A to B to C honestly if you're on foot it can be a bit better uh albeit a bit frustrating like definitely a bit more like anger generating uh but if you're in a cab or bus it will take longer than expected um I'm not quite sure if like Google Maps do ad just do that in August but um I would give yourself enough time when you make your bookings do double check where those venues are sometimes like if you just try to like trust your brain and your memory and like kind of think to yourself like oh I I was I was in that venue last year so that was right next to this one the venues sometimes shift from year to year so again do not underestimate the chaos uh do double check how far these are from each other and I just think like you really shouldn't like totally like backto back shows anyway like that sounds very exhausting but yeah there's a danger of missing out and the other thing to keep in mind is that there is a lot happening just kind of between the venues you know there's just so much like food and Street performance and just kind of General good vibe to take in that um I think that it's better not to overstretch yourself when it comes to booking shows like I think that like three shows in a day sound really good to me like that's kind of that's probably the maximum of what I would do I mean do I know people who can do six shows in a day yes am I scared of them also yes what can I do when I get overwhelmed by The Fringe Madness yeah let's finish on this one because uh my as you know one of my favorite pastimes is just finding ways of avoiding crowds so I am somewhat of an expert here um now if you want to stay within Edinburgh I think that there's always going to be areas that will be a lot less fringy you know you have leth you have brunfield uh however I do think that still those areas are a lot busier during August than they would be any other month so um do not expect them to be just as pleasant as they usually are my surely at this point unsurprising tip number two would be Glasgow because if you're visiting Edinburgh I know that a lot of you I can see I I see you a lot of you have never actually been to Glasgow it's like 40 50 minutes away on train and I imagine that if you're here for Fring for like a couple of days after a couple days you're going to be just totally spent you're going to be totally burnt out and you will be looking for somewhere that's like a fun like vibrant City you will want to like just just go to a museum or like or a gallery or like eat somewhere nice without having to compete with all these other people and Glasgow is perfect for that because nobody seemingly wants to go there and that's stupid because glasgo is amazing yeah you have galleries you have great food you have great bakeries and also you can go to one of their huge Parks you know go to pul park go see some coup shis also East loan you can travel the other way you can travel to the east either by bus or by train uh this is a great kind of relatively affluent area just outside of Edinburgh with a lot of very picturesque towns um I think that one of the easiest trips would be going to um North baric but there's also headington which is a bit closer you know you can get there by bus there's also Preston pants where you can get the most beautiful fish and chips with the most great view over Edinburgh although now that I'm saying it I'm realizing maybe that very fish and chips truck kind of moves into Edinburgh for The Fringe so uh double check before you go there North Barrack is great they do have the seabird Center and like lot of stuff to see you can climb the north Berry claw okay I think that is it for me for my tips for Fringe 2024 um there's definitely something I forgot about I mean I did not I did not cover any of the Big Basics along the lines of like where to stay because if you're watching this now with like 6 weeks to go there won't be anywhere to stay just if um you can always like look at places in like maybe like faler or Glasgow cuz the commute would be doable and another thing that sometimes people ask about is like making reservations for restaurants um I guess that realistically I would recommend making that reservation as far in advance as possible cuz again all August is the the peak like there are so many people I believe that one of the pre-o years the amount of people in Edinburgh for Fringe was almost like double of what the actual population of Edinburgh is so you can imagine that kind of messes with the capacity um it it makes sense that uh you do have to book things more in advance uh for for that sort of situation okay if there's any other questions that you think I might be able to answer or if you have any other tips you'd like to share with both me and other people who are part of this community let me know in the comment section I always read all my comments I don't always react to all of them it takes a lot of time and of course if you're rude then I might react if you make me very angry but usually I just I just leave it and then I go meditate anyway if you like this video if you found it helpful if you appreciate the prep the effort that goes into my videos don't forget that I have a patreon page now you can visit me here the idea is that you can get a monthly free bonus video if you become a part of that particular tier there's also other tiers uh in some of the tiers you can get free merch or you can even get some free illustrations uh of whatever you want as long as it's not too rude and of course my Instagram that's also an easy place to say hi uh either khaki B for my illustrations or Kaki blog for my photography and just general life and in Edinburgh and some tips on where to eat and such okay that is it for me about Fringe 2024 that's a lie I'm definitely going to be bringing you more videos about French because it takes a month and it's all over the place so it's hard to avoid so yeah there will be more French content when French actually happens in about six weeks hopefully you're looking forward I'm also looking forward I'm actually very excited now that I finally have my guide I can't wait to go through this and highlight everything okay getting to it excited and just kind of you know going on a bit of a mental walk about here sorry for that thank you for watching and I shall see you soon possibly at Fringe bye [Music]

Channel: Kakibot's Guidebook

Views: 3,685

Keywords: edinburgh, edinburgh guide, fringe 2024, edinburgh fringe 2024, best shows edinburgh fringe, fringe travel tips, edinburgh fringe comedy, edinburgh in august, edinburgh scotland, guide to scotland, edinburgh theatre, things to do in edinburgh, what to see in edinburgh, edinburgh 2024, edinburgh local, edinburgh travel vlog, local guide edinburgh, fringe programme, summer in edinburgh, edinburgh vlog, edinburgh blogger, edinburgh hidden gems

Id: KC76IOTuGYQ

Length: 29min 34sec (1774 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 23 2024