Edinburgh Fringe 2020 cancelled due to coronavirus

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Zoe Paskett1 April 2020

This year's Edinburgh Fringe "will not go ahead" amid uncertainty over when the coronavirus lockdown will end.

Organisers announced today that the world’s biggest arts festival would not be going ahead as intended. The Fringe attracts tens of thousands of artists and millions of audience members from across the globe to Scotland every August.

The Festival Fringe Society, which puts together the programme, announced that the “unavoidable” decision not to run the event was made together with the Scottish government and Edinburgh City Council.

In a statement, Fringe Society chief executive Shona McCarthy said: "Today’s decision that the Fringe will not go ahead as planned was not taken lightly. We have spent the past month listening to a broad cross-section of Fringe participants, as well as to government, healthcare professionals, residents and many more; however, in light of present circumstances it was unavoidable. Public health must and always will come first.

"We are working hard to mitigate the impact of this decision on Fringe artists and audience members. Today we are committing to refunding all participant registration fees, as well as refunding the Fringe tickets and Friends memberships purchased by our audience members. We are also offering participants who have already paid the alternative of rolling their show registration forward to the 2021 Fringe to cover an equivalent show listing."

She continued that despite the festival not going ahead as originally planned, the Fringe is "committed to working with artists and creatives from Edinburgh, Scotland and across the world to find new ways of uniting people under a Fringe umbrella.

"We look forward to seeing you in Edinburgh in 2021."

More than 3 million people attended last year’s Fringe with more than 30,000 artists presenting work including theatre, comedy, dance, exhibitions and music. It is the biggest event of the year for many artists.

Edinburgh Fringe is the latest in a long line to cancel or postpone events due to the coronavirus outbreak.

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