In the exhausted aftermath of World War II, when even the victors faced visible and emotional devastation, a group of arts visionaries in Edinburgh, Scotland, figured out what their city truly needed. And maybe the world needed it too. Someone had to celebrate centuries of pan-European culture and the classical music, dance and theater it had produced. Yes, exactly what the world had almost lost.
Ultimately, it proved a very good thing for Edinburgh (and the world) that eight local theater companies felt left out in the cold – even though it was summer – when the Edinburgh International Festival came together in 1947. Today, so-called Fringe Festivals in about 250 cities around the world have those eight theater companies to thank.
Turns out, those Fringe performances during the first year of the International Festival weren’t billed as “fringe” at all. They were simply given in alternative venues, not least because the International had scooped up all the best spaces, all the city’s official stages and concert halls. These low-budget theater companies set up their sets and props anyplace they could squeeze in a few chairs.
The performance spaces were, by definition, around the edges of the classical celebration, across the street and around the corner. Upstairs or down in the basement. The shows they hosted seemed to fit them perfectly, being free in terms of language and unlimited in terms of subject matter. It was the following summer of 1948 when a Scottish journalist (and playwright) noted that shows “on the fringe” of public taste and morals might be referred to as a… Fringe Festival.
“Round the fringe of official festival drama,” wrote Robert Kemp, “there seems to be more private enterprise than before… I am afraid some of us are not going to be at home during the evenings!”
In 2024, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival reported selling 2.6 million tickets to more than 51,446 performances of 3,746 official shows registered from 60 countries. That doesn’t count the UN-ticketed, unofficial shows as the city streets filled with fire eaters, axe jugglers, storytellers, circus gymnasts and a kaleidoscope of other acts. And even that doesn’t count the bagpipe players setting out a hat on the sidewalk for donations. On busy days, the section of High Street known as the Royal Mile approached impassibility.
“It is not enough,” Fringe chief executive Shona McCarthy said, announcing the jaw-dropping figures, “to have old stories of how important Edinburgh’s festivals were in providing healing and connecting after the Second World War. They are important now, contributing hugely to health, well-being, joy, and job creation. The Edinburgh Fringe vision is to give anyone a stage and everyone a seat.”
From the first two or three years of the Fringe, there was always an implicit protest against the International Festival, at the very least over its choice of high-profile international (and resolutely traditional) performers for its schedule. Even music of the great German composers was allowed at the EIF, a mere blink of the eye after Hitler had died in his bunker and his murderous occupation of Europe had come to an end.
As part of the “protest,” the usual Darwinian forces kept Fringe ticket prices low and access easy. The improv festival moment worked, drawing in crowds already gathering (or visiting Edinburgh) for the International.
In those storied times before online ticketing, things tended to be handled with cash, and a beloved Fringe tradition was born. Young people (most easily recognizable as “theater kids”) swarmed through wherever a crowd was gathering, handing out fliers for the next performance just down that alley. There was, and still is, something pure and arguably classic about that, the kind of unscripted, wild but safe community gathering that anyone might get excited about.
And that, of course, was how the Fringe Festival conquered the world. It proved impossible for anybody visiting Edinburgh during Fringe time, pressing through the banner-carrying crowds past the circus acts on High Street, NOT to say: “Why can’t we have one of THESE back home?” And within a few years they did.
Two-hundred-fifty is typically given as the number of cities hosting Fringe Festivals on every continent except Antarctica. Some festivals are small and brief, but others are huge and extended. Adelaide hosts the largest Fringe in Australia, while Canada’s Edmonton hosts the largest in all of North America. Because there’s no single club or league that festivals have to belong to, pay for or obey (how un-Fringe would that be!), administration styles and policies for performers and audience vary wildly.
Most remain true to the free-for-all “non-juried” approach in the original DNA, but others have felt the need to select the acts to be presented. Other than basic Fringe idealism, who can say what’s right or wrong? Not all Fringes that appeared are still with us. There’s a lot of money changing hands when a festival proves a hit, but a lot of money is owed too. Sometimes, in some cities, the numbers haven’t worked out.
Over the years, in Edinburgh, the Fringe and International Festivals have made peace, creating a kind of festival season – though frankly, the rivalry was never especially nasty anyway. And other festivals have followed their success: the Edinburgh International Television Festival in 1977, the Edinburgh International Jazz Festival in 1979 and the Edinburgh International Book Festival in 1983. Most famously, an early book festival featured a reading by a newly published local novelist, J.K. Rowling. It was some tale about a boy at a school for wizards.
The Fringe world remains a special place for actors and other performers in country after country. For some, it’s a step onto the first wrung of the showbiz ladder, looking back at early Fringe visits by the likes of Dudley Moore, Billy Connolly and Rowan Atkinson. For other it’s a chance to create and present their own material, whether serious or (more often) comic. The Edinburgh festival’s current website boasts that it’s “the world’s greatest platform for creative freedom.”
For audiences, in Edinburgh and elsewhere, numbed by the sameness enforced by bean-counting entertainment conglomerates, the Fringe is a place to feel the bracing thrill of being smacked in the face by something entirely new.
