University and the Edinburgh Festivals

Year round work with our Fringe Tenants and Edinburgh's Festivals

Festival City

Edinburgh is the world's leading festival city, with a range of major annual festivals bringing talents from more than a third of the world's countries to our streets and stages. Dating back to 1947, the Edinburgh International Festival was established after World War II to stimulate "a flowering of the human spirit" and bring people from across the world to connect through creative endeavour. In that same year, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and the Edinburgh International Film Festival also started to amplify this aspiration and enable more people to take part. Sidney Newman, Reid Professor of Music at Edinburgh University was instrumental in this original vision.

Other festivals followed, from military grandeur to intimate jazz and blues, captivating science to underground theatre and children's entertainment. As these festivals grew into world-leading celebrations, international excellence in art, culture and science became a permanent and inescapable part of Edinburgh's identity. The City is now a hotbed of cultural interaction, creative innovation and challenging academic thought with the University of Edinburgh at its heart. The University is proud to support such an animated cultural scene, with events covering a range of subjects from art, science, film and media to literature, music, technology and more.

Summer Fringe Partners

The University is a bustling central hub, providing a home to over one third of Fringe performances.

Edinburgh’s Festivals

The University works with Festivals year round in many ways for example through partnering with the Edinburgh International Festival, the Edinburgh Science Festival, the Edinburgh International Book Festival and others to enable them to produce and present work across the City.

https://www.edinburghfestivalcity.com/

Edinburgh Festival Fringe

The University of Edinburgh inspires and hosts a number of Fringe shows every year.

Edinburgh International Festival (EIF)

The University is a proud supporter of the Edinburgh International Festival.

Edinburgh International Book Festival

The University of Edinburgh is a major sponsor of the Edinburgh International Book Festival, with the James Tait Black Prize Ceremony for Fiction and Biography held there.