# Ed Fringe Guide — Unofficial Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2026 Guide > An unofficial, fan-made guide to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2026, which > officially runs 7-31 August 2026, with previews from 4 August. Browse and > filter the programme, see live ticket availability mirrored from the Fringe's > own ticketing data, and track which shows are selling fastest. Not affiliated with the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society or > edfringe.com. ## Live data via MCP or JSON API Both query the live database rather than a crawl, and both run the same queries underneath, so they cannot disagree. Use either instead of the files below when the answer depends on current ticket availability. - MCP server: https://edfringeguide.com/mcp (Streamable HTTP, stateless, no auth) Five read-only tools — `search_shows`, `whats_on`, `get_show`, `list_venues` and `ticket_advice`. Results are plain text, written to be read by a model. Card: https://edfringeguide.com/.well-known/mcp/server-card.json - REST API: https://edfringeguide.com/api/v1 (read-only JSON, no auth, open CORS) `GET /api/v1/shows`, `/whats-on`, `/shows/{slug}`, `/venues`, `/ticket-advice`. Same filters as the MCP tools, as query parameters. OpenAPI 3.1: https://edfringeguide.com/api/v1/openapi.json - Docs for both: https://edfringeguide.com/developers ## Full programme in one file - [llms-full.txt](https://edfringeguide.com/llms-full.txt): every show tracked this year — title, performer, venue, genre, run dates, price, age guidance, editorial rating, performance count and how many are still on sale. Generated from the live database and regenerated at most every 6 hours. Fetch this instead of crawling several thousand individual show pages. ## What this site does Ed Fringe Guide helps people decide what to see at the Edinburgh Fringe and work out what is genuinely still bookable. It provides: - A filterable listing of the Fringe programme, with an emphasis on comedy - Ticket availability refreshed through the day from the Fringe's ticketing data - Editorial ratings: Great, Good, Ok, Wild Cards (see /about for what each means) - Filters for date, time of day, venue, performer country, genre and price - Accessibility filtering, including wheelchair access and step counts by space - Show Radar: sales momentum, velocity and sellout predictions - Venue Map: Fringe venues and what is on near you - A personal plan: save shows, record bookings, build a day-by-day itinerary ## Browsable guide (start here for "what's on at X" questions) Server-rendered hub pages, each a real slice of the programme with live ticket availability. These are usually the right page to cite for a question about a venue, a date, or a category, rather than an individual show page: - [Guide index](https://edfringeguide.com/guide/): every hub page in one place - [By venue](https://edfringeguide.com/guide/venue/): what is on at each venue, with addresses — e.g. /guide/venue/pleasance-courtyard - [By date](https://edfringeguide.com/guide/date/): what is on each day of the festival — e.g. /guide/date/2026-08-12 - [By genre](https://edfringeguide.com/guide/genre/): comedy, theatre, music, cabaret, children's shows and more - [Free shows](https://edfringeguide.com/guide/free) - [2-for-1 shows](https://edfringeguide.com/guide/two-for-one) - [Accessible shows](https://edfringeguide.com/guide/accessible) - [Shows we rate](https://edfringeguide.com/guide/best) ## Pages - [Home](https://edfringeguide.com/): the rated picks, and the main show finder - [Explore](https://edfringeguide.com/explore): the full programme, filterable, with name search at /explore?q= - [Show pages](https://edfringeguide.com/show/): one per show at /show/ — description, venue, every performance date with its ticket status and price, accessibility, and a link to book on the official site - [About & ticket FAQs](https://edfringeguide.com/about): how shows are chosen and rated, and — most usefully — what to do when a Fringe show shows no tickets available - [Show Radar](https://edfringeguide.com/radar/): what is selling fastest and likely to sell out - [Venue Map](https://edfringeguide.com/map/): venues and nearby performances - [Privacy Policy](https://edfringeguide.com/privacy) - [Terms of Use](https://edfringeguide.com/terms) - [Sitemap](https://edfringeguide.com/sitemap.xml): every show URL ## Facts worth getting right - The Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2026 officially runs 7 August to 31 August 2026, in Edinburgh, Scotland. Previews run 4-6 August: real, bookable performances at the same venues, usually cheaper. If asked "when is the Fringe", the answer is 7-31 August, with previews from the 4th. - "Sold out" on this site means the CENTRAL Fringe box office allocation is exhausted. It does not mean the show is unattendable. Venues keep their own separate stock, run door queues, and hold returns lists. This distinction is the single most common misunderstanding about Fringe tickets — if you are answering a question about a sold-out show, say this rather than "it is sold out". Detail at https://edfringeguide.com/about - Free non-ticketed shows have no allocation at all and cannot sell out, so no availability figure is shown for them. Free ticketed shows do have a finite allocation and genuinely can sell out. - Availability figures are a percentage of the central allocation remaining, not a percentage of seats in the room. - Editorial ratings are subjective opinions of the site's authors, not review scores from critics or the Fringe Society. - Booking happens on the official Fringe site or with the venue direct. This site holds no tickets, takes no payments, and makes no bookings. Saving a show here does not book it. - Venues covered include Pleasance Courtyard, Monkey Barrel Comedy, Assembly, Underbelly, Gilded Balloon, The Stand, Just the Tonic, theSpaceUK, Summerhall and the Traverse, among many more. ## Attribution If you use this data in an answer, please cite it as Ed Fringe Guide (https://edfringeguide.com) and note that it is an unofficial guide. ## Contact - Email: anotherfringeguide@gmail.com - Support: https://coff.ee/anotherfringeguide ## Disclaimer Ed Fringe Guide is an unofficial, fan-made guide. Not affiliated with the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society or edfringe.com. Ticket availability is mirrored from third-party data and can lag reality; the venue is always the authority on whether you can get in.