ED2012 News

Biggest ever Fringe – some stats

By | Published on Monday 18 June 2012

The Edinburgh Festival Fringe will be bigger than ever this August, making it the biggest culture festival to ever take place in history.

As the official Fringe programme was published late last month, 2695 shows had registered with the Fringe Society organisation, a 6% increase on last year, despite some concerns that continued economic turmoil around the world and the distraction that is the London Olympics, which will overlap with the start of this year’s festival, might have a negative impact on the number of performers and companies wanting to take part.

As the Fringe programme was launched last month, the CEO of the Fringe Society organisation, Kath Mainland, told ThreeWeeks: “This promises to be the most exciting and exhilarating Fringe yet. This year sees 2695 shows in 279 venues across the city, which is 6% more than ever before”.

She continued: “The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is still the first choice for performers, producers, artists and creators to come and tell their story; we are proud that the Fringe is still the place to bring your work, with opportunities to amaze, enthral and excite audiences from both far away and close to home. We have a programme that will capture the attention of people all over the world and demonstrate why over the last sixty six years the Fringe has grown into the greatest show on earth”.

As Fringe fans the world over begin to digest this year’s programme (though, for the first time this year, tickets for many shows went on sale in early Spring, so there were slightly less surprises), the Society shared some stats about the 2012 line up.

In terms of genres:
Comedy makes up 36% of the programme
Theatre 28%
Music 13%
Musicals & Opera 4%
Children’s Shows 4%
Dance & Physical Theatre 4%
Events 4%
Cabaret 4%
Exhibitions 2%
Spoken Word 1%

An estimated 22,457 performers will take part this year, with 42,096 performances in total, staged at 279 venues, and with 47 different countries represented. There are 1418 world premieres, and 814 free shows to choose from.



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