£220 for one night in a windowless tiny box in an EasyHotel on Princes Street in Edinburgh—yes, you read that right.

As someone who has lived a better part of his adult life in Mumbai—a city renowned for its tiny apartments and traffic-clogged lanes—even I found that room a bit too cramped. 

For comedian Ali Woods, this surreal reality isn’t a punchline—it’s just the going rate in August.

“The accommodation costs are a genuine disgrace. I have been going for a decade, and the inflation is purely exploitative. Capitalism at its worst. There’s a saying at the fringe that everyone makes money apart from the performers, and it’s true. The people who make the fringe what it is are expected to pay for everyone else’s good time, too,” Woods tells Invezz.

Outside my miniature room, the city’s grand old streets were buzzing with performers from every continent: artists handing out flyers in the rain, and venues popping up in every available nook—from grand theatres to pub cellars and shipping containers.

For the duration of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe (August 1-25), the city’s population nearly doubles. Every spare bed, sofa, and windowless pod becomes a hot—and outrageously expensive—commodity.

A cultural behemoth—and its economic shadow

In 2023, there were 3,535 shows from over 60 countries. By 2024, the festival featured 3,746 shows from 60+ countries and over 2.6 million tickets sold, making it the fourth highest in the festival’s history.

Local businesses capitalised on the influx: in 2023, takings soared by 35–42% across cafes and restaurants, with some independent retailers seeing a 50% spike in sales. In 2024, local businesses saw a 37% increase in takings, with food outlets and venues reporting record highs.

“The two middle weeks are insane. Since 2020, it went quiet, and the Fringe didn’t pick up until last year—now it’s back to normal,” Zebra Coffee Co was quoted in 2024.

For many small businesses, August remains gold, accounting for up to 40% of their annual turnover.

“Helped me get an agent”

For performers, the Fringe can be a launchpad.

“It has helped me get an agent. A lot of the industry still goes, so it is a good chance to meet people, and I have made a few good contacts there. Also, in a broader sense, it’s helped me become a better comedian by having 25 days of hour-long stage time in a row without having to travel,” Woods says.

In 2023, the festival season supported over 7,100 full-time equivalent (FTE) jobs across Scotland, with nearly 6,000 of those tied directly to the Fringe.

These jobs—mostly in hospitality, marketing, tech, and PR—offer opportunities for students and freelancers.

But the reality is complex. Many are insecure, low-paid, and short-term, with “limited protections for the overwhelming majority of festival-time workers,” as Parliament’s Culture Committee warned in 2023.

In response, the Fringe Society introduced a new code of working practice in 2024, encouraging affiliated venues to meet or exceed the Real Living Wage and provide proper training. But Woods’ lament remains—the festival’s success doesn’t trickle down evenly.

The high price of stage time

The cost of mounting a show has skyrocketed.

According to a Fringe Society survey, the average cost for an artist in 2023 was £5,412—including travel, accommodation, venue hire, marketing, and registration. In 2024, accommodation was widely acknowledged as the single biggest barrier.

  • Average Airbnb in August 2023: £1,450–£1,700 for the month.
  • Average Airbnb in August 2024: £281 per night, with prime flats charging up to £2,000 a night and some one-bedroom flats for the month reaching £9,000 (a 300% increase in six years).
  • Hostel beds: £64 a night (£1,920/month).

“The big one is rent control. Edinburgh’s an expensive city, but food/drink is what you would expect from a festival, and there are ways to work around that by cooking for yourself and not having four pints a night. Also, room hire and PR are a lot of money, but you don’t need to be in a paid venue and have PR to go to the Fringe. Unfortunately, though, with the accommodation prices continuing to rocket, they’ll price out the performers as well as the audiences,” Woods says.

Crowdsharing, sleeping in vans, and forgoing PR are common among artists trying simply to break even. The hardest hit are working-class, disabled, and early-career creatives.

The Fringe Artist Fund awarded £195,000 in bursaries in 2023. In 2024, the festival’s bursary program grew to £450,000 total, but with over 2,000 applicants for just 180 grants of £2,500 each. The demand far outweighs available support.

Fringe veterans are blunt: “If you don’t have a lot of money, doing the Fringe becomes a real gamble. It’s so expensive—just getting up here, staying and paying for the space”.

Public funding and policy response

Amid growing pressure in 2024, the Scottish Government confirmed £300,000 in direct funding for the 2025/26 festival, supplementing earlier grant support and recognising the festival’s economic and cultural weight.

“The Scottish Government is committed to working with the Fringe Society and all partners…to help safeguard the future of the Edinburgh Fringe as a world-leading cultural asset, built on the principle of free access for all,” said Deputy First Minister Kate Forbes in April 2024.

Chief Executive Shona McCarthy added: “This will undoubtedly contribute greatly to Scotland’s economy, society, and culture sector, and we hope this is a first step towards long-term funding for the Fringe Society”.

The housing crunch: rising rents and resident displacement

In August 2023, short-term rental platforms such as Airbnb saw a dramatic surge in listings, with an increase of 31% in the month leading up to the festival alone.

This influx of short-term lets, aimed at accommodating the tens of thousands of visitors flooding Edinburgh each August, has caused a ripple effect throughout the city’s housing sector. 

As landlords convert long-term rental properties into lucrative short-term accommodations, rental prices across Edinburgh have surged, significantly squeezing the supply available to residents who rely on affordable, stable housing.

James Knight, a resident, tells Invezz:

As someone living in Stockbridge—a posh part of Edinburgh about 20 minutes from Waverley—I see just how many flats sit empty most of the year. It’s striking to walk down the street and spot clusters of lock boxes, signalling properties rarely in use except during the festival. Owners hold these homes solely to cash in on the Fringe crowds, driving up housing costs for everyone. My own neighbour is a prime example—they’ve got a license to let for 12 weeks a year, but otherwise their place just sits empty. This practice is really damaging for the city.

A 2024 Scottish Parliament briefing highlighted that approximately one in five residents in central Edinburgh report enduring ongoing noise disruption throughout the festival period. 

Even more concerning is that over half of those living in these areas feel “pushed out” of their neighbourhoods during the festival weeks—a sense of displacement that reflects both rising costs and the overwhelming presence of visitors and short-term lets that alter the character and affordability of their communities.

City leadership has publicly acknowledged these housing pressures as a threat to the city’s social fabric. 

In March 2024, Edinburgh Council Leader Cammy Day voiced a clear warning, stating,

We cannot allow the festival economy to make the city unaffordable for the people who live and work here. 

He emphasised the need for more robust intervention, pointing to recent steps to strengthen licensing controls on short-term rentals but acknowledging that these measures alone are insufficient.

The day called for greater government support to advance policies targeting affordability and rent regulation, underlining the importance of protecting long-term residents from being priced out by the festival-driven housing boom.

In response, stricter licensing requirements for short-term lets and tighter enforcement of planning regulations came into effect during 2024.

However, critics have pointed out that enforcement remains uneven and often reactive, struggling to keep pace with the rapid expansion of short-term listings during the festival.

The ongoing challenge for Edinburgh, therefore, remains how to balance the undeniable economic benefits of hosting the world’s largest arts festival with the preservation of affordable housing and community wellbeing.

Pressure on public services: infrastructure under strain

Both in August 2023 and continuing in 2024, Lothian Buses, the city’s primary public transport provider, reported that service delays increased by between 16% and 20% across key routes.

With tens of thousands of festival-goers relying on public transportation to navigate the city, buses have struggled to maintain schedules amid the substantial ridership surge, leading to overcrowding and frustration among locals and tourists alike.

Edinburgh Waverley station, the city’s main rail hub, similarly reaches peak operational capacity during the festival.

Data from recent years indicates that the station handles up to 80,000 arrivals daily in August, turning it into one of the busiest nodes in the UK during the festival period.

The sheer volume of passengers arriving, departing, and transiting through Waverley contributes to logistical challenges, requiring coordinated efforts between rail operators, security, and city authorities.

Healthcare services also feel the weight of the festival crowds. NHS Lothian reported an 11% rise in Accident & Emergency (A&E) admissions during August 2023, with numbers similarly elevated in 2024.

Many of these cases stemmed from festival-related incidents, including injuries, alcohol intoxication, and exhaustion, which place additional strain on hospital resources already stretched thin during peak times.

This healthcare pressure reflects the broader effects of seasonal population spikes on public services.

Moreover, the city has had to deploy hundreds of extra temporary staff to manage waste collection, sanitation, street cleaning, and public safety during the festival.

Despite these efforts, residents and visitors have frequently noted visible neglect in some central streets amid the busy festival weeks—overflowing bins, littered pavements, and delayed maintenance remain common complaints.

The visible wear on city infrastructure and public amenities underscores the ongoing struggle to adequately support the scale and intensity of the Fringe.

Who benefits—and who pays the price?

While the Edinburgh Fringe Festival injects tens of millions of pounds into the local economy and elevates the city’s cultural profile on a global scale, the distribution of its financial benefits is markedly uneven.

Large privately owned venues, established hospitality chains, and vacation rental platforms often capture a substantial share of the festival’s revenue.

This concentration of profits contrasts starkly with the economic hardships experienced by performers, many of whom face exorbitant costs just to participate, and by residents who bear the brunt of rising rents and service pressures.

This divide has not gone unnoticed in more formal assessments of the Fringe’s impact.

Creative Scotland’s 2023 audit described the festival as both an economic “powerhouse” and a “pressure point,” highlighting systemic barriers that prevent full participation from artists of diverse backgrounds and communities.

These barriers stem from affordability challenges and the exclusionary effects of the escalating cost of living in festival-centric areas.

The disconnect between the festival’s economic boon and the social costs borne by many stakeholders frames an urgent policy dilemma for Edinburgh and Scotland.

Without mechanisms such as a local tourism levy or dedicated reinvestment of festival-related business rates into city services and housing support, there is a risk that the Fringe’s success will deepen existing inequalities rather than contribute equitably to the city’s prosperity.

The verdict: boom, backlash, and a city in the balance

Across both 2023 and 2024, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival has been a formidable driver of economic activity and global cultural prestige for Scotland’s capital.

It has supported thousands of jobs, bolstered local businesses, and put Edinburgh at the centre of the international arts calendar. Yet that same success has also exposed deep tensions surrounding affordability, livability, and sustainability.

Local artists, residents, and public service providers face mounting challenges amid this extraordinary event.

The festival’s explosive growth triggers displacement anxieties, infrastructure strain, and a widening gap between who benefits and who pays.

The joke that “everyone makes money apart from the performers” captures a real and growing concern that the magic of the Fringe risks slipping beyond the reach of those who have long defined its spirit.

Ensuring the Fringe’s future as a truly inclusive and sustainable cultural landmark requires deliberate policy action.

It will take coordinated efforts to regulate housing, support artists, improve public services, and fairly distribute economic gains.

Ultimately, the enduring success of the festival—and the health of the city it calls home—depends on striking a critical balance between boom and backlash.

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