Free Fringe

The Free Fringe is an organisation that promotes free shows at the annual Edinburgh Festival Fringe in Scotland. Free Fringe venues are commonly independently run bars and nightclubs which create performance spaces in their premises for the duration of the Fringe Festival. It was started in 1996 by Peter Buckley-Hill with the show "Peter Buckley-Hill And Some Comedians" in the basement of the Canon's Gait pub on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh.

Performers are not charged for performance spaces on the condition that they do not charge an entry fee into their shows, although audience members are asked to make a donation at the end of a show.

Predominantly the shows are comedy but the programme has expanded to include theatre, science and spoken word.

The venues have expanded since 1996 from the original Canon's Gait venue to over 170 free shows in 19 venues - over 3,500 performances including appearances from performers including Stewart Lee, Simon Munnery and Robin Ince.

Most of the operating costs for the Free Fringe are covered through advertising sponsorship in the Free Fringe brochure. It's part of the Free Fringe ethos that no performer should pay anything towards the running of the organisation.