Edinburgh International Festival

What is often referred to as ‘The Edinburgh Festival’ is in reality an umbrella term for a whole number of arts and cultural festivals that run simultaneously in Scotland’s capital city every summer. Theatre, film, books, jazz, rock, art, comedy, television, food and even politics all have their own dedicated festivals now!

In recent years some of the arts festivals have begun to loosen their ties with the traditional Festival month of August. For instance, in 2008, the Edinburgh International Film Festival was moved, very successfully, to the second last week in June. This may be a harbinger of further changes in the years to come.

But for 2009 the traditional Edinburgh Festival period will still be centred around three glorious sun-drenched (if you’re lucky!) weeks in August. This is when the city doubles in size from half a million to around a million people, and when bars, restaurants and clubs relax their licensing hours late into the night.

The centre piece of August’s cultural extravaganza is still the official Edinburgh International Festival (EIF) which runs from Aug 14th- Sep 6th. The EIF can be high brow, classical, or even experimental, but it is always a programme of quality events garnered from all around the world. The 2009 Homecoming Year – celebrating the 250th anniversary of the birth of poet Robert Burns – is evident in the EIF programme with Diaspora events and a theme of The Scottish Enlightenment.

Edinburgh International Festival
14th August - 6th September 2009

Edinburgh Film Festival
17th - 28th June 2009