Fringe performer, High Street, Edinburgh Fringe

The Edinburgh Festival Fringe has its roots in the attendance of eight uninvited theatre groups at the inaugural Edinburgh International Festival in 1947. This unofficial adjunct to the festival grew in both size and organisation throughout the 1950s with more and more performers coming to take advantage of the audiences drawn to the capital by the official events. By the end of the decade a well organised Festival Fringe Society had been established with a constitution, brochure, and central ticket sales. Today 'The Fringe' hosts several hundred productions each year, and ticket sales have exceeded 1.6 million.