For Festival Newbies ...

This website hopefully contains useful information on Edinburgh and its August festivals for all fellow punters, both established and new.

It should be particularly helpful to those who are trying the festival for the first time. However, beware all you newbies - you may get hooked!

To get a flavour of the effect that Edinburgh can have on punters and artists alike, read ...

• The World's Greatest Art Event and How to Survive It, written by comedian Stewart Lee (2006)
• Tales of the Unexpected by Lyn Gardner (2007)
• Bloated, over-priced and unmissable by Richard Morrison (2008)
• if you plan to perform I thoroughly recommend Mark Fisher's book The Edinburgh Fringe Survival Guide: How To Make Your Show A Success. It covers all the major topics that any artist / performing company should be well versed in before coming to Edinburgh, liberally sprinkled with the sound experiences of veterans from all aspects of the festival. Fisher strikes the right balance, encouraging would-be performers while pointing out the various pitfalls (February 2012)

In summary, far and away the most popular page is A History of the Edinburgh Festivals. This is followed in the run up to the festivals by the pre-festival stuff page which includes links to articles on previews and recommendations across the media which will hopefully help you to make your choice of shows.

Talking of choosing shows, this can be difficult on the Fringe where there can be 2,000+ to pick from. Choosing Shows may be useful if you are the type of person who likes to plan ... give it a miss if you prefer to make instant, on the spot decisions.

You will find a fairly comprehensive set of useful links.

Finally, if you are interested in the beautiful city itself there is a potted history of "Auld Reekie" as Edinburgh is affectionately known.