Stand Up Night
Sometimes you can get hold of low-priced comedy tickets during the Edinburgh Fringe as there are tons of 2-for-1 promotions happening. All that actually involves is that if you get a buy-one-get-one-free promotion, it means you pay the same amount to attend a show as it would under normal circumstances, as during the Fringe all the entry fees double.
I'll take stand up night at my local comedy place over that.
What are the explanations that people provide to support their statement that the perfect time to witness comedians in Scotland's capital is during the Fringe? 1 argument is the quantity of performances which are happening.
Instead of the typical handful of stand-up performances, there are hundreds during the Festival.
However my belief is that abundance does not necessarily imply quality. Over time I have seen dozens of stand up comedy events at the Festival, and a large proportion of these were hopeless. I have left a number of gigs after sitting for as much as 30 mins without even feeling the need to grin, never mind laugh.
Simply because a stand-up performance is in the Festival does not guarantee that it is going to be funny.
I attend a lot of standup performances in all seasons, and from my standpoint there are far less really awful performances on outside of the Festival.
The majority of folk think that the optimal opportunity to watch stand up comedy in Scotland's capital is in the Fringe every August. I'm one of those that disagree with this theory. Enjoy the Festival if you get the chance, but don't limit yourself to that. Once in a while the warm-up comedians somewhere else would be more entertaining.
One main argument that people offer for going to the Fringe is that we get to see the big-name stand ups, and can watch the next big things in standup before anyone else.
My personal experience is somewhat different. The best known comics' gigs always sell out prior to the time when you've even found out they're happening, and as such you're less likely to see them doing their act than at any other time of the year. In addition the argument that you can get to witness the up and coming acts being discovered: to be fair, I guess it is possible, but you are probably going to see someone who has twenty minutes of pretty comical jokes, and thirty minutes of filler.
None the less, they got a fantastic write-up due to the fact that the journalist merely had time to watch the beginning of the performance.