Let's Celebrate In 2024!
The Free Festival will be back in 2024, with a new and huge programme of art, entertainment and laughter coming to you from venues around Edinburgh.
And it is a very special year for us in 2024, as it' our 20th Anniversary year at the Fringe! Our programme will be available from May, for the moment the shows on this site are the shows we had last year in 2023.
Laughing Horse Free Festival is one of the biggest comedy producers at the Fringe - and don't forget we also have cabaret, theatre, music, children's shows and more.
In 2023 we had nearly 7,000 performances of over 350 shows across our venues, raging from the very best in new talent through to big name shows. Just what a Fringe should be!
Would you like Free Fest shows in YOUR venue?
If you have a venue in central Edinburgh, and would like to host Fringe shows we are always looking for extra venues for future years - click here to find out more about all of the benefits of hosting shows.
Best in Free: Best of the Fringe
With award winners and nominees, over many years we've had critically acclaimed Fringes, alongside a bucket-load of four and five-star reviewed shows.
This means our shows are free and also some of the best of the Fringe - while we allow performers and audiences experience the freedom too, with a chance to experiment and enjoy, just without the huge costs! Just what the Fringe should be!
'Free & Unticketed' and 'Pay What you Can' shows - how show entry works
Our shows are either 'Free & Unticketed' or 'Pay What You Can' depending on how the performers have chosen to run their shows. This is how it works:
Free & Unticketed: Entry to a show is first-come, first served at the venue - just turn up and then donate to the show in the collection at the end.
Pay What You Can: For these shows you can book a ticket to guarantee entry and choose your price from the Fringe Box Office, up to 30 mins before a show. After that all remaining space is free at the venue on a first-come, first-served bases. Donations for walk-ins at the end of the show.
As always 100% of the ticket price or donations for each shows goes directly to the performer, which helps them benefit as much as possible from what audiences can give to them, after a tough couple of years for performers and show producers.
There was just under 7,000 Performances of over 350 Shows in 2023
In 2019 we had over 9,000 performances of 400 shows... and then COVID happened!
In 2020, we kept the Free Festival going online, and we were so happy to be back in venues for 2021 - even with a much smaller programme of just over 650 performances of 62 shows...
And then we were back and pulling out all the stops in 2022 and 2023! for amazing return of The Free Fringe Festival with no more restrictions... And we look forward to making it even bigger for our big anniversary in August 2024 - it's going to be huge!!!
Running the Free Festival costs a lot of Money
Some of this money is recouped through sponsorship & advertising. If you would like to contribute and help keep these venues free for performers and audiences click here