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Photo: Festival Fringe Society, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
As the name might suggest, this festival developed on the fringe of the main International Festival and offers more alternative performances, with an emphasis on comedy and avant-garde; it is now the largest arts festival in the world. Many shows offer cheaper preview tickets on the first two days of the festival or a 2-for-1 ticket special on two selected dates. There are a few sub-festivals that are part of the Fringe such as the Assembly Festival, Summerhall Festival and CtheFestival. Part of the Fringe are also many free events (with donation if you liked the show) across the city grouped mostly under the PBH's Free Fringe or Free Festival.
The Edinburgh Festival Fringe, often referred to as the Edinburgh Fringe or simply the Fringe, is the world's largest performing arts festival. In 2025, it ran for 25 days, selling more than 2.6 million tickets, and featured 53,942 performances of 3,893 shows across 301 venues, with participants from 68 countries.