Edinburgh Fringe 2025

Time & place

Times

Fri, 1 Aug '25 12.00am to Mon, 25 Aug '25 11.59pm

Venue

Edinburgh Fringe Shop and Box Office

Tickets and info

Telephone (info)

0131 226 0026

Telephone (box office)

0131 226 0000 / 0131 226 0036 (Friends of the Fringe)

Book tickets

Edinburgh Fringe Tickets

Description

The Edinburgh International Festival may have come first, but generally it's the Fringe that Edinburgh is best-known for. There's really nothing quite like it - "the largest show on Earth".

It's a sprawling, anarchic, sleepless month of live performances.

Free Fringe Shows

Free street shows on the Royal Mile (aka the High Street) and at the galleries on The Mound (aka Mound Precinct) take place throughout the Fringe with the daily schedule of performers listed from 10am each day on the Fringe website here.

There are hundreds of free shows and pay-what-you-want shows at many venues at the Fringe as well (see PBH free venues and Laughing Horse venues, for example).

Fringe 2025 Programme

As in previous years, shows are released in batches, with most of the shows revealed by the time that the printed Fringe programme hits the streets in the first half of June.

You can pre-order the paper Fringe 2025 programme, pick it up at the Fringe office and locations around town, or view the printed Fringe brochure online.

Check the Fringe tickets website for booking info - its advanced search is useful for filtering shows
Printed Fringe brochure online - the Issuu version allows you to flick through the brochure pages
Check back here for news and reviews from the Fringe! You can find our reviews archive below.

Fringe Central

During the month of August, Fringe Central is the home of the Fringe Society, the charity that provides artist and media support and leads Fringe marketing initiatives. The Fringe Society is the public face of the Fringe.

Where in the past Fringe Central was a temporary home, in 2023 the Fringe announced that it was going to be moving into a permanent Fringe Central, which would be both a year-round cultural hub as well as the base for the Fringe Society. It is expected to be open for business by Winter 2025/2026, following work to decarbonise and customise the former school and community centre for its new role.

Fringe Funding, App, and Covid

The summer Edinburgh festivals were cancelled in 2020 due to Covid-19, although an online programme did take place.

Due to Covid-19 restrictions, the Fringe in 2021 followed a slimmed-down, hybrid programme of both live performances at fewer, socially distant in-person venues and online. The Fringe Society did not print a Fringe brochure in 2021.

The Fringe returned to in-person shows in 2022, but the Fringe Society controversially dropped the Fringe app in 2022. Fringe boss Shona McCarthy said this was due to lack of time, money, and general uncertainty caused by the pandemic, to develop the app.

Fringe 2023 saw the return of a more robust Fringe with in-person shows and the Fringe app (released on Tuesday 11 July).

By Fringe 2024, the arts festival had found a firmer footing, thanks to expanded initiatives like the Keep It Fringe and receding health fears about in-person performances. However, financial pressures from the cost of living crisis and an uncertain funding environment for the Fringe and the arts in Scotland remained.

At the end of her last Fringe as Chief Executive, Shona McCarthy warned that "the pipeline of creative potential is under threat”.

Edinburgh Fringe Reviews Archive:

* Reviews archive back to 2000 are offline after a site upgrade

Edinburgh Fringe Society