What's the criteria for performing at the festival as a comedian? Do you have to have an hour of material or is there any events/package shows that allow 20 spots?
Edinburgh Festival
If you can find a venue or a show to perform at you can do whatever you like.
Most "proper" shows are an hour (although technically 45-55 mins to allow for venue turnarounds) and only shows longer than 40 minutes are eligible for the big awards (I think, or it might be 45 minutes).
You'll often see newer comics splitting hours between two or three acts or even doing a 30 minute solo show so that they can come back when they are more experienced and still be eligible for "Best Newcomer" (i.e. doing their first hour long show).
There are also plenty of variety and mixed bill shows though where you can do spots between 5-20 minutes, these are generally a mixture of new acts doing short spots and more experienced acts do spots as a way of getting people to come and see their full length shows.
So how would I go about doing the 5-20 min shows?
Find out who's booking them.
Generally Laughing Horse (The Free Festival) and PBH (The Free Fringe) run a lot of mixed bill shows, along with The 99 Club, try contacting Alex Petty, Peter Buckley Hill and James Woronieki.
Like most things in comedy (and life) it's who you know and being in the right place at the right time, as it gets closer to the Fringe people will be looking to fill spots, so keep your eyes and ears open.
If you're in Edinburgh anyway it's worth dropping into shows and asking if you can get on.
After encouraging AJGO to go I found this on John Otway's site.
For this year's Edinburgh Festival, I shall once again be taking part in Peter Buckley Hill's Free Fringe. PBH has kindly provided one of his premiere venues with a prime spot at 8pm. Performances shall be Sunday-Monday and Wednesday-Friday (no shows on Saturday or Tuesday). The exception to this is the first Saturday of the Fringe, when I shall be performing. I look forward to seeing as many fans old and new as possible and will undoubtedly see you all at the bar of the Jam House both before and after the gig.
Definitely worth going to.
Quote: Tony Cowards @ 15th April 2014, 2:58 PM BSTYou'll often see newer comics splitting hours between two or three acts or even doing a 30 minute solo show so that they can come back when they are more experienced and still be eligible for "Best Newcomer" (i.e. doing their first hour long show).
Or you get a troupe of comedians performing there for one or more years, then in another year the same comedians performing their own individual shows, and still be nominated for "Best Newcomer". This happened to Humphrey Ker, who was part of The Penny Dreadfuls for several years and won the Newcomer Award on his own.
Good luck to Stuart Laws (Chopz) and any other BCG members at Edinburgh this year.
Has anyone seen Otway up there yet? He's been seen driving his Sinclair C5 around the streets.
Here he is at Glastonbury
If you're going try the Jam House.
http://www.thejamhouse.com/edinburgh/live-music/month/08/year/2014/
I'm guessing that it's probably time to look into accomodation for this.
Does anyone know any reasonable places?
Don't really want to slum it too much.
If you want to get somewhere quite cheap, it's a good idea to share a flat with a handful of others. Really cuts the price down quite nicely, if you can find people.
So following from the above is anyone going? Does anyone want to share?
I'm going up for a day or two
Quote: Steve Sunshine @ 24th July 2016, 2:12 AM BSTI'm going up for a day or two
Performing?
I'm performing 6th-27th Southsider, part of the free fringe, First Fringe evah