Experience the Edinburgh festival

A trip to Edinburgh during the Edinburgh Fringe Festival can make your city centre stay an extremely exciting one. What began in 1947 by a handful of performance artists has grown year on year to become one of the world's largest arts festivals and one of Edinburgh's biggest attractions.

For the majority of the month of August, Edinburgh city centre becomes overrun with Fringe fever. For those four weeks, thousands of performers take to hundreds of stages and venues throughout the city with the aim of entertaining the festival crowds with their talent. From live music and musical theatre to dance and physical theatre, everything is covered during the festival including plenty of children's shows, exhibitions and events.

Theatre is one of the largest mediums of the festival, although this has slowly been overtaken in recent years by comedy, with many of the big name stand ups as well as plenty of new names to the comedy circuit. Due to its popularity over the years you'll find that many of the big names in British theatre and stand up have performed at the Fringe, including Rowan Atkinson, Stephen Fry, Emma Thompson and, more recently, Ricky Gervais.

The Fringe Festival can be a great time to experience the city as Edinburgh comes alive with music, theatre and dance, even as you walk down the street to the nearest venue. The Royal Mile becomes a stage in itself with live music and action happening constantly throughout the day. Thankfully, Edinburgh is a reasonably small and compact city so most venues are close by within the city centre and can be reached by foot or even by bike.

There are also plenty of cheap hotels in Edinburgh and all kinds of accommodation can be found close to the popular stage venues. Everything is covered here, including luxury hotels, historic buildings, cosy bed and breakfasts and state of the art apartments, so you are sure to find something that will suit your style and budget. Of course, you need to remember that the Fringe Festival is very popular so if you are visiting at this time of year make sure you book your chosen accommodation as early as you can

Once your accommodation is organized, you need to start planning your visit, as there is plenty to see and do during the festival. Head out to the box office early to secure tickets to the shows you particularly want to see, although if you aren't too bothered about the shows you watch, make sure you take advantage of any free performances or tickets that have been discounted on the day. The idea of the Fringe Festival is to take in as many shows as you can and you will find that the other visitors are always ready to give you recommendations of great shows that they've seen.