Edinburgh prepares for Festival frenzy

EDINBURGH (Reuters) -- It's time once again for Edinburgh's prestigious annual International Festival of the arts to entertain, enrapture -- and be hopelessly upstaged by its chaotic, low-budget "unofficial" offshoot, the Fringe.

August's month-long extravaganza is the world's biggest arts jamboree with no fewer than six festivals running side by side: the International Festival, Books, Films, Television, Jazz -- and the Fringe.

This chaotic mish-mash of shows from low-budget opera to low-brow comedy and street theater is the best known of all and opens on August 6.

In time-honored fashion, the Scottish capital's taxi drivers curse the congestion, residents bemoan the late-night revels, and organizers warn that the Fringe, neglected though it is, risks becoming a victim of its own success.

"In 1997 the Festival brought in over 130 million pounds (US $197 million), but things have got bigger since then and so it will probably be around 150 million ($227 million) this year," Fringe director Paul Gudgin told Reuters on Friday.

But he pointed out that around a third of festival revenues now come from the Fringe, which sprang up in 1947 as a spontaneous addition to the post-war International Festival -- and quickly overtook its more official cousin to become the main reason arts lovers make the summer pilgrimage to Edinburgh.

It now draws in 13,000 performers from across the globe who between them stage a staggering 17,000 performances in 180 venues across the city.

But while the city council contributed 1.17 million pounds ($1.76 million) to the high-brow International Festival of classical music, dance and opera, it gave just 19,000 pounds ($29,000) to the Fringe -- a subsidy of just 2.5 pence (four cents) a ticket.

"The biggest threat to the Fringe is complacency," Gudgin said. "It is becoming more expensive each year to put on shows and for many theater companies the decision to come to Edinburgh is getting harder."

Theaters range from the spacious, modern Edinburgh International Conference Centre to the cosy surroundings of the Old Fire Station Pub in Edinburgh's dark, mediaeval Old Town.

Gudgin estimates more than 900,000 Fringe tickets will be sold to some 400,000 fans, only half of them from Scotland.

Around 10 percent will have flown in from overseas, especially America and Australia, to see performances ranging from Puppetry of the Penis -- "a mind-blowing cabaret show consisting of two men who manipulate their genitals into various shapes, objects and landmarks" -- to a staging of Wagner's opera Tristan and Isolde -- "a colossal love story expressing profound truths about the essence of being: life, death, hate and love."

In light of the vast sums generated by the Fringe Festival, Gudgin said it was time Edinburgh City Council put its hands deeper into its pockets to ensure that some of the larger productions would be coming back to the Fringe in a year's time.

But with this year's event being touted as the biggest and best yet, and an online ticket service (www.edfringe.com) available for the first time, the Fringe should keep the residents and the organizers moaning for several summers yet.

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