The Edinburgh International Festival is once again upon us this month in all its action-packed, carnivalesque glory.
As one of the biggest arts festivals in the world, the city’s population typically inflates to around twice its size. Room prices rocket, buses and trams are packed and you can’t get from one end of the Royal Mile to the other without being accosted by someone desperately handing out flyers.
It's all fun and games if you came over just for the Fringe – but if you’re living and working in Edinburgh during the festivities, the novelty of walking through excited, rowdy streets, past guitar-wielding buskers and smug amateur comedians can quickly wear off.
Here are our top ten bugbears about the Edinburgh Festival.
1. Hecklers at stand-up gigs
Stand-up hecklers are usually lairy drunk men bolstered by the presence of their mates who think they are funnier than the comedian they went to see. The only thing worse than forcing a loud pity laugh to fill the cavernous silence after a bad joke is watching someone down the front shouting at the poor sod on stage – so awkward that it makes your hairs stand on end.
2. The Royal Mile
You have to accept that the Royal Mile is going to be a right royal mess during the festivals. Thousands come from all over the world, plunge millions of pounds into the local economy and help to put Edinburgh on the world stage. Regardless, it’s easy to forget the massive perks of this inaugural annual event when you’re in a rush, reluctantly tailgating a total stranger through the crowds and trying not to step on small children.
3. Not waiting in line
For the seasoned Edinburgh commuter, nothing gets more frustrating in the morning more than a lack of queuing etiquette at a busy bus stop – with tourists pushing to the front of the line instead of filing orderly onto the bus. Of course, instead of explaining nicely to them that there is a waiting system, you just tut loudly and let your eyes bore into the back of their skull instead. Rush hour wouldn’t be the same without a small dose of passive aggression.
4. Mid-festival transport
A bus journey which involves going down Princes Street in prime festival season is enough to strike fear into the hearts of time-strapped commuters, who have to leave for the bus half an hour earlier in the morning just to get to work on time. Worse still, when people take time to board the bus just to ask the driver for directions; they are not a walking sat-nav.
5. Street performers
While singers, magicians and jugglers can add some colour and atmosphere to the city centre, a lot of them are rubbish. Thankfully you need a license to busk on the Royal Mile during the festival, otherwise the street would be lined with total chancers. The guy wearing a horse mask while dancing badly to Calvin Harris on Buchanan Street springs to mind.
6. Booking tickets. Restaurants. Anything.
Want to book a table at Mark Greenaway? Good luck with that. Finally got a night off work to go see Frankie Boyle? Too late, it’s already sold out. Even though you should book well in advance to make sure you get to see your favourite shows and comedians, the temptation to wait just one more night can often in result in your plans being scuppered.
7. American tourists claiming to have Scottish ancestry
Few things irk more than being cornered on the way to the toilet at a bar than an over-enthusiastic American tourist keen to share their genealogy story traced back to the 16th century. The best thing to do is to nod and listen politely, whilst suppressing the urge to tell them that most people have foreign ancestry if you look back far enough.
8. Still working that 9 to 5
On those rare afternoons when the sun is splitting the skies, the birds are singing, people are having picnics in the park and crowds of revellers are congregating in pub terraces for some al fresco drinks, the dawning realisation that you have about five minutes left on your lunch break to get back to the office fills you with bitter resentment.
9. Accommodation price hike
Yes, even the price of renting a box room in Edinburgh during the festival can be ridiculously expensive, but messaging us on Facebook asking to crash on our sofa for the month after not speaking to us for two years is perhaps a little out of the question.
10. Return of the Yahs
Brace yourself for the braying hordes of overly earnest Edinburgh drama students filling the streets of the city during August. Outdoor theatre and surreal walkabout acts are par for the course, whether they are dressed in period costume for a promenade performance of Macbeth or creeping about in packs with cat facepaint on. Watch out for intense gazing, personal space invasion and – as Kevin Bridges put it – “the enthusiasm of someone who has never been punched in the face.”
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