Fringe By The Sea has so much to offer over ten days

Much excitement among the Avalanche staff this week as John and Sofia are off to North Berwick next Thursday to see Belle and Sebastian who are performing at Fringe By The Sea, playing their album If You’re Feeling Sinister in full.

Sofia has already been lucky enough to have seen the band playing in New York this year as part of their Tigermilk tour when she went home for her sister’s graduation.

While the gig itself is on in the evening, there are things to do all day, so having seen the band several times in the early days I offered to stay behind and mind the shop so they could make more of a day of it.

I hadn’t actually realised there was so much at the Fringe By The Sea or indeed how long it lasted. Taking place from July 31 to August 9 it is a multi-arts festival with an eclectic mix of events, from Alex James of Blur bringing to life Britpop classics with a full classical orchestra, to an Underwater Drawing Workshop to Stuart “Woody” Wood assembling a bunch of musicians to perform as the Bay City Rollers.

Having reluctantly organised a few events in my time I have no idea how the small team that runs the festival has possibly managed to bring together such a wide ranging number of events. There are even lots of things for children to do every day so it really is a family festival.

The Festival has grown from 12 performances over three days in 2008 to over 250 events over ten days this year and of course with the number of people that attend, it is a great boost to the local economy.

Closer to home it is now less than a month away to possibly the biggest gig of the year from a shop perspective with The Cure playing on Sunday August 23 at the Royal Highland Centre with special guests Mogwai and Slowdive.

Many people will start arriving for the gig on the Friday and won’t leave until the Monday when Edinburgh is hosting Florence and the Machine or the following day when Lorde is also at the Royal Highland Show, so we expect one of the busiest weeks of the year.

No sooner will that all be over than there will be a second wave of fans with The Deftones playing on the Thursday, Bon Jovi performing at Murrayfield on the Friday and The Prodigy playing on the Saturday.

Given we now get a lot of families in the shop during August who are simply here on holiday and have no interest in the Edinburgh Festivals, as well as all the music fans it is true to say that the Fringe and International Festivals offer the least boost to our business in August and to be honest they were never the cash cow they were perceived to be as they mainly drained people of any money to spend elsewhere.

There are still a few tickets left for Belle and Sebastian available at https://www.fringebythesea.com/belle-and-sebastian-perform-if-youre-feeling-sinister/ though I would fully expect it to sell out earlier in the week.

You can view all the events that are taking place at Fringe By The Sea on their website at https://www.fringebythesea.com/line-up/