#edfringe — Public Fediverse posts

On the off chance anyone in Edinburgh needs some recommendations for this last week of Fringe - here are some shows I've caught at MICF and loved, and that are on here:

• Frankie McNair (though note the content warnings, they are accurate)
• Felicity Ward
• Fuccbois
• Scout Boxall

We also caught of The Distance, Noah Szto, and Elf Lyons this evening, and they were all excellent. #EdFringe

Oops! My evening show tonight is at THE Tailor, a charming cafe at 13 East Norton Road in Edinburgh.

My fliers unfortinately list a Tailor shop across town on Gorgie Road. Don't go there, they will be so confused!

Thanks, Google Maps.

#EdFringe #edinburghfringe

This is such a good show. You should see it if you're at the #EdFringe

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:6j3pievmgejaw7mihzffeap4/post/3mtvjrm4gm222

🆕 blog! “Why do audience members choose specific shows at the Edinburgh Fringe?”

On our recent trip to the Edinburgh Fringe, I was bemused by just how little effort performers put in to finding out why people had selected their show. Taking a show to the Edinburgh Fringe is ridiculously expensive with some performers paying tens of thousands of…

👀 Read more: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2026/08/why-do-audience-members-choose-specific-shows-at-the-edinburgh-fringe/
⸻
#data #EdFringe

Why do audience members choose specific shows at the Edinburgh Fringe?

On our recent trip to the Edinburgh Fringe, I was bemused by just how little effort performers put in to finding out why people had selected their show. Taking a show to the Edinburgh Fringe is ridiculously expensive with some performers paying tens of thousands of pounds. The way performers recoup the costs of performing is by getting people to pay to see a show.

Acts are spending huge amounts on flyers, posters, and other promotional activities. But is any of it worthwhile?

The performer Danielle Solof has a fascinating blog post "My Real Fringe Budgets, Line-by-Line" which details the actual costs of her taking two solo shows to the Fringe. She meticulously details the price of everything from transport and food, to advertising and graphic design. She says:

I paid for outdoor ads because absolutely no one in Edinburgh knew who I was. They did help, but you still have to grind to get an audience in.

My question to her - and all performers - is how do you know what drives an audience member to see your show?

It can't have escaped your attention that everything we do online is tracked. If you buy so much as a toothpick, the retailer knows which YouTube reviews you watched, which words you searched for, the other products you considered, and the specific adverts you clicked on.

In Edinburgh, no one knows nothing.

At the end of nearly every show the performer begged us to leave a review on the Fringe website and to tell our friends. In absolutely none of the shows did the performer ask why we were there, how we found out about the show, which poster or leaflet attracted us, or whether we followed them on social media.

All that money spent on posters and no one knows if they work. As the old saying goes "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted, and the trouble is I don’t know which half.".

So, in an attempt to bring a little data to proceedings, here are how we chose the 26 shows we saw. I don't claim this is representative of everyone, but I think it might be illustrative. In rough order of importance were:

Proximity

The EdFringe app has a "nearby now" feature. Click on it and you get a list of shows starting soon which are only staggering distance away.

I cannot stress enough how much of a motivator that was. When you've spent all day traipsing, the last thing you want to do is another 20 minute walk uphill to see a provocative new piece of challenging theatre told through finger puppets.

About 20% of the shows we saw were via that feature.

Roughly another 40% were because the show was close to something else we really wanted to see. We knew that we wanted to see show X, so we looked for shows which weren't too far away from that venue. Yes, Edinburgh is a compact city with decent public transport, but it is much easier to walk round the corner or stay to have a drink in the venue's bar.

You can really want to see a show, but if it is a 20 minute walk between venues and it starts 15 minutes after your last show ends, you'll skip it. I'd say that location was the key driver in most of our choices.

I guess my top tip to any performer would be to be as near as physically possible to a bigger act!

Friends

A quarter of the shows we went to were because either a friend-of-a-friend was performing, or a friend booked tickets and asked if we wanted to tag along.

You are morally obliged to go to your friends' shows. Similarly, if a mate says "Oh, my friend has a show on this year", you have to make the effort to go.

Perhaps it is a bit blasé to say that word-of-mouth works, but it's a cliché becausé it is trué.

Flyers and Leaflets

We collected approximately 5,374 different promotional leaflets during our week there. Most of the time we were handed a leaflet by someone paid to hand out leaflets. They were either wordlessly stuffed into our hands, or delivered with a monotone "wanna see improv comdy?" Bleh.

A few actually spoke to us about the show when we asked questions, which was a deciding factor in seeing a couple of performances.

The best flyerers were, undoubtedly, the performers themselves. Kat Ronson in her Millennial Girl guise drawled at us "You look thin and pretty. You're allowed to come to my show." Instant sale!

Similarly, one rather famous comedian walked up to us and said "You look like theatre people!" and proceeded to pitch their show - which was a delightful encounter and would have sold us a ticket if we weren't leaving that day.

Some flyers had a QR code or URl on them so we could watch a trailer of the show. We didn't watch any of them. Perhaps we should have?

Posters

Surprisingly effective at drawing the eye! The ones which were just a photo of the comedian looking a bit "whacky" were dull. The ones of performers in their most seductive poses were a little naff. The ones which were just a close up of someone's face only really work if that person is incredibly famous, otherwise you're just left thinking "who?"

But a few posters made us stop and immediately search for the show. Graphic design is a professional skill and one worth investing in.

Some posters were everywhere. I took an instant (and uncharitable) dislike to one poster featuring a smug-looking twat and I swear he followed me around town. Some posters only appeared near the performance venue.

Incidentally, there were a couple of posters which had clearly just been fed into an AI generator. Lazy and off-putting.

Reviews

The Fringe doesn't allow weighted star reviews - so you can't immediately see if the consensus is that the show is a hit or a miss. Several of the shows we didn't enjoy got excellent reviews (from morons) and some of the shows we loved were panned (presumably by the same morons).

In truth, I don't think the reviews influenced our decision to see anything.

What Stopped Us Going To Shows

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. I think it is important for performers to know what stopped someone clicking the "buy" button for their show.

Ticket Cost / Value For Money

Mondays and Tuesdays saw lots of shows doing a 2-for-1 promotion. I didn't mind spending £30 for two of us to take a risk on something. Come Wednesday, I wasn't prepared to pay £60 for a 45 minute show.

I know "surge pricing" gets a bad rap, but dynamic pricing of underselling shows might help. If you've only sold four seats for today, perhaps drop the price? I don't know if the Fringe software supports that - but it seems obvious to me that having 10 people paying a fiver is better than four people paying a tenner.

Crap Signal / Long Queues

We tried to get in to a circus show. My phone didn't have enough signal for the app to work and the nearest box office had a massive queue. So we bailed.

If the venue had WiFi (not a given, weirdly) it would have gotten them an extra sale. If the ticket staff could take contactless (lots of performers did) we'd have happily paid.

You have to make it easy for people to give you money.

Not Enough Time

This is completely out of the performers' control. We had 6 days and saw about 4 shows per day. We could have seen more, but we needed to eat, explore, and sleep.

Speaking of which, there were several midnight performances which looked excellent - but I also needed to get up the next day to see more shows. Sleep won!

Too Famous

I'd love to see that guy who's on the telly. But I can watch him on the telly. That show looks like a massive success, so I'm sure it'll tour round London soon.

Sell Outs

A few shows sold out before we could get tickets. Good for them! If that was your show, you probably don't need this blog post.

Better Art Through Commerce

Art should be driven by passion.

But every performer I know listens back to their shows to see what works and what didn't. If a joke falls flat, it's cut. If a riff gets a big laugh, it's incorporated. That's the essence of data driven decision making.

I wish every performer at the Fringe had a sell out audience and were able to recoup their costs. But that is never going to happen unless they spend time understanding what gets bums on seats.

So here are a few scattered thoughts on how they could do that.

• QR code at the end of the show leading to a survey. Literally ask people "what made you choose this performance?"
• In the queue before the show, or as people are taking their seats, hand out a paper questionnaire.
• Talk to the audience after the show. See if you can gain any insights about what made them attend.
• As people are coming in, have a poster asking people to tick a box based on how they heard about the show.
• Give each leaflet a unique code (or a code per person handing them out). Ask people to bring the leaflet with them so you can see which area/person/leaflet was most effective.
• Each poster can have a unique QR code on it. Track whether the one by the station led to more ticket sales than the one in the underpass. Did the one in the gents toilets get any scans at all?

Of course, all of the above rely on talking to people who made the choice to see you. This is classic Survivorship Bias. Sure, it'll help you work out what was successful, but you won't know why people looked at your show and chose something else. That said, it is hard. How do you find people who ipso facto aren't at your show?

• That could be as simple as asking people what they dislike about the leaflet when you hand it out.
• Each poster or leaflet can have a unique QR code on it. Which ones cause people to scan, but then abandon the idea of buying a ticket?
• Speak to people who came to the venue for a show other than yours. They obviously like the location, so non-confrontationally ask them why they didn't pick you?

Some of these are easier than others. By themselves, they might give you a slightly misleading view of the data. But surely anything is better than looking at a half empty venue and wondering if those huge advertising costs did any good at all.

It’s not every Sunday night you decide go to a #Summerhall courtyard and strip 3/4-naked, then go into a very large #sauna hut. Absolutely brilliant immersive experience! Acting, comedy, funky music, sauna heat (+ #Aufguss towel dancers to waft the heat), the smells of amazing scent bombs dropped onto the sauna stones, your own sweat, regular (optional!) cold shower + plunge pool breaks. Definitely recommended, #EdinburghLeisure please take notes 😉
#EdFringe #EdFests
https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/sauna-sessions-arts-club-the-hottest-club-in-town

Extra Lives turns an entire Edinburgh Fringe audience into a single player in a live choose-your-own-adventure game, complete with synchronised retro gaming music. Here is our review of the collective RPG. #EdFringe https://www.geeknative.com/241414/extra-lives-the-interactive-video-game-concert-edinburgh-fringe-2026-review/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=fedica-GNBlogWave1

Maybe it's just my opinion, but some of the #edfringe Free Fringe shows have been better than the paid ones.

Almost every show at the #EdFringe ended with a plea to leave a review on the official website.

While I'm sure that people read reviews, that doesn't help much when there's literally hundreds of shows starting right now all of which have "best show ever!!!!" written by the performer's dad.

One more thing about the Edinburgh Fringe.
No one asked us how/why we decided to go to their show.

There are thousands of people handing out leaflets, a haphazard array of posters, trails on social media, an app, & a paper guide.

Which ones influence audience & which are wasted money?

#EdFringe

I can't believe John Robertson picked on me, took my drink then criticised how little I had left! #edfringe

Not shabby, Edinburgh. Also, 64 degrees, sunny, not humid.

#EdFringe #edinburgh #edinburghfringe

Just #edfringe things.

At the Edinburgh Fringe doing very serious work of taking photos for Wikipedia.
Also,
Everyone should go and see "Flee, you fools" it's an amazing show and I hear they will soon have good news for UK fans.

#Edinburgh #EdFringe

Edinburgh Fringe -- Daniel Kitson, Thrum, at Queen's Hall

Basically a return to standup comedy (from theatre) for the #EdFringe legend. A series of crabby, hilarious rants. Sure they weave together over the show and recur and the show ends with a heartwarming bit of humanity. So do most standup shows at #Fringe, if not this well.

If you don't know his name but like Stewart Lee, you'll love this.

It's an excellent show, especially at his deliberately lowered ticket price of 10 pounds. A bit long at 1 hour 40 with no interval, but with Kitson, you're always in good hands.

He'll tour the UK and Ireland this fall. A handful of obstructed view seats are still available for the last shows, tonight and Friday. https://www.thequeenshall.net/whats-on/daniel-kitson-thrum-tickets-edinburgh

I saw a lovely and uniquely earnest and positive show at #EdFringe, "Let People Like You." I know that's not the UK manner, but this mix of humor, original songs and poetry and a bit of dance was heartfelt and moving.

Edalia Day is very talented as a singer, songwriter and poet, without feeling showiffy or like an audition to hoped-for talent scouts, as happens at #Fringe. Her clown training (Le Coq) comes through as an unself-conscious embrace of joy.

At CC Blooms, 1:40 pm, PBH Free Fringe.

Edinburgh Fringe review #9

David O'Doherty: At This Stage — ⭐⭐⭐½

If you've seen anything David O'Doherty before this will satisfy and not surprise. Silly songs, silly jokes, silly songs with silly jokes in. Solid, expected, enjoyable.

#EdFringe

https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/david-o-doherty-at-this-stage

Edinburgh Fringe review #8

Sh!t-faced Shakespeare — ⭐⭐⭐½

Shakespearean actors but one of them is proper pissed. Overall good fun, didn't wow me big time but it would change a lot depending on the drunk! Definitely enjoyable though.

#EdFringe

https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/sh-t-faced-shakespeare-hamlet

Edinburgh Fringe review #7

FLIGHT — ⭐½

Oh boy I hated this. It's a darkroom audio experience which I normally enjoy but I just couldn't get over how it felt so much like a real plane and from minute 2 I was just waiting to leave. Not for me!

#EdFringe

https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/flight

Edinburgh Fringe review #6

Stamptown — ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

This blew my fucking mind. I thought I wouldn't like it but instead I was laughing constantly and amazed by the talent. It's a chaotic variety circus show but much more. Closest I've gotten to a 'must see'!

#EdFringe

https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/stamptown

🎶A FLUFFY BUNDLE OF JOY 🎶
🎶 A FLUFFY BUNDLE OF JOOOOOOY 🎶
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
#showstoppers #edinburgh #edfringe

🆕 blog! “Thoughts on visiting the Edinburgh Fringe as a newbie”

This was my first ever time at The Fringe™. Here are some scattered thoughts looking at the good, the bad, and the annoying aspects of this madly extravagant exhibition of talent. We saw 23 shows together, and one separate show each. There were more hits than misses, but the frustration of wasting your time on a bad …

👀 Read more: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2026/08/thoughts-on-the-edinburgh-fringe-as-a-newbie/
⸻
#EdFringe

Thoughts on visiting the Edinburgh Fringe as a newbie

This was my first ever time at The Fringe™. Here are some scattered thoughts looking at the good, the bad, and the annoying aspects of this madly extravagant exhibition of talent. We saw 23 shows together, and one separate show each. There were more hits than misses, but the frustration of wasting your time on a bad show is rather heavy when there are literally hundreds of other shows on offer.

Price

Everything is too expensive. We found student accommodation which was a "mere" £220 per night. I guess that wasn't too exorbitant considering the gouging going on elsewhere - and it did come with a decent breakfast. It was about a 20 minute walk from the Royal Mile, with several performance venues on the way.

The 46 tickets we bought cost us £550 in total - which included a few donations at Free Fringe shows. So an average ticket of £12, which isn't too bad, I guess. You can certainly do things cheaper by only going to free shows and running away when they ask you to pay - but that's a dick move.

£20 for a single hour of stand-up feels like kind of a rip off at times - especially with the mandatory £1.50 booking fee for every ticket. Some shows are a bit cheaper, and Monday/Tuesday has 2-for-1 offers. But it's easy for a couple to spend well over a hundred quid per day seeing 3 or 4 shows.

Festival food and drink prices are inflated - but there's no shortage of supermarkets if you want a meal deal. Restaurants were usual city centre prices. The bars at festival venues were fully taking advantage of their captive audience, but the pubs aren't much cheaper.

The App

In theory, the app / website is good. In reality they're both a bit frustrating to use. Every time I ticked the box saying "remember my credit card details" and every time it forgot them. Both app and website frequently timed out, failed to add tickets to baskets, and were a bit shonky. The one thing this needs to do is reliably take my money and give it to performers - but it felt like a battle every time.

We missed one show because we couldn't buy a ticket in the app despite being in the queue. The door staff didn't have the ability to sell us a ticket (although some venues can) and directed us to a box office which was dealing with a bunch of people who were bemused that they couldn't pay in dollars.

Inexplicably, the app doesn't have the ability to see show reviews, even though they're present on the website.

There's a good "Nearby Now" feature which is handy when you're exhausted and don't want to trek far. By contrast, there's no easy way to see what's on near the next venue you're going to.

Searching for shows often returns events which are cancelled or sold out.

I wish it were possible to see which shows had undersold and were starting soon. I loved taking a punt on an unknown act who only had half-a-dozen people in the room. Sadly there's no way to grab last-minute deals.

This isn't helped by the total collapse of mobile signal in Edinburgh centre. I tried with a variety of SIMs but frequently only got a trickle of data.

What To See

The FOMO is real! Every show's poster makes it look amazing. The earnest performers desperately handing out leaflets for their own shows are so enthusiastic. Everyone you speak to in a queue has a "must see" which is probably sold out.

We mostly avoided seeing big names. They'll be on telly soon enough or tour down in London. I don't think that act who was big in the 1990s needs my coin as much as some up-and-comer.

You could easily fill a week seeing nothing but Shakespeare in a variety of styles. Or just watch middle-aged white guys have mental breakdowns on stage because they're on their 3rd divorce. Or, as it turns out, fill your boots with Heated Rivalry shows.

We did the tasting menu and had a little bit of everything. It was mostly pretty good with only a few duds.

Reviews

Even the worst show we saw had a couple of people who declared it the funniest thing ever five stars lol. You can't account for someone else's taste.

I enjoyed writing my reviews - and I hope they were useful to others - but you're mostly on your own when it comes to what's good. I suppose if you wait until later in the festival there will be more of a consensus about what to see.

My philosophy is to take a punt on basically anything that doesn't look too abhorrent. Even if it is shit, there's be something else along in a minute which will be better.

Distance

You'll get your 10k steps in before lunchtime - Edinburgh is a delightfully walkable city. With a bit of planning you can walk a straight line from show-to-show. We didn't plan and traipsed back and forth like the little lost tourists we were.

Venues are mostly well sign-posted. Again, the app is a bit crap at pointing them out, but it'll open your mapping app to navigate you there.

Many of the venues are in historic buildings, so don't expect lifts or escalators. Stairs all the way, baby!

Harry Potter

Edinburgh seems like an inclusive and trans-friendly city. Half the acts on the Fringe proudly stated their LGBT+ credentials and most venues we went to had gender neutral loos.

And then every other shop proudly boasts it is 100% definitely where JKR got the inspiration for Harry Potter. Tourists are schelpped between "Diagon Alley" and probably-the-cafe-where-she-wrote while slurping down dayglo butterbeers.

Truly the duality of life!

Comfort

There's an ancient Edinburgh byelaw which prohibits cushions on seats. No chair may be wide enough to accommodate anything other than the skinniest arse. It also places a moratorium on legroom.

Ok, some of the venues were more comfortable than others, but prepare for a bit of backache.

Toilets are plentiful in most venues, and theres no shortage of pubs to pop in to if you need refreshment or relief.

Scotland isn't known for its heat, but some of the venues desperately need air-conditioning in their foyers and auditoriums. A few were handing out free water to the swealtering punters - but probably best to bring your own

Would I Come Here Again?

Yeah! I reckon so! Probably not next year, and probably with more of a plan about which "must sees" I wanted to see.

Staying closer to the centre is more expensive, but might have made it easier to see some if the shows later in the night.

There is so much talent, so much variety, and so much joy in the city that it becomes rather infectious.

If you can afford the train fare, hotel costs, tickets, booking fees, pints, chips and all the other people desperate to stick their hands into your wallet - then it is a great adventure.

#EdFringe review: "Swamplesque"

Loud, proud, body-positive, queer, drag burlesque based on the plot of the first Shrek movie.

Impressive dancing and acrobatics - especially from the twink-ly mirror ball; helped by a loud sound system and an enthusiastic audience.

A striptease by the Gingerbread Man maybe the most... confusing thing I've ever seen.

If you like burlesque, you'd probably go higher but for me: 2/5 🟠🟠⚪⚪⚪

https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/swamplesque

#EdFringe review "Shoot from the Hip"

The thing the young adults in our party wanted to see most (so I watched an episode on YouTube). Classic comedy improv, in the style of "Whose Line Is It Anyway?"

Very impressively improvised a play with a proper start, middle & end. The challenge with a longer format is you can see when one performer has an idea to progress the plot, but another cast member doesn't - but they got there in the end.

If you know and like them already, you'd score them higher, but for me: 3/5 🟠🟠🟠⚪⚪

https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/shoot-from-the-hip