Performers and venues get green light to return for Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2021 - your views online

"Unfortunately due to the virus there’s no chance I’ll be going. Next year has to be safer.”

EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND - AUGUST 05: An Edinburgh Festival Fringe entertainer performs on the Royal Mile on August 5, 2019 in Edinburgh, Scotland. The festival takes place in the Scottish capital from 2 to 26 August, and is marking its 72nd anniversary, this year sees some 3,841 shows performed in the world’s oldest fringe festival, that runs alongside the Edinburgh International Festival. (Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

Festivals are back

Performers and venues get green light to return for Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2021

Neilx Reidx

As a bus driver in our capital it can be frustrating, nut after the last year without any real passengers numbers I would happily swap for three weeks of madness.

Sharon Wright

If in the same form as previous festivals, we will be locked down again for winter! What a slap in the face to everyone who has done as they’re told for the last year!

Pete Thomson

For those full of angry negativity, feel free to stay at home while the rest of us support and celebrate the creative industries.

Lisa Brannan

I miss the Fringe and all types of the theatre but can’t see Covid going away just in time for August! I don’t think viruses work that way.

Jenn Black

Walked up the Royal Mile. It was just plain weird – no hustle or bustle of tourists, only Starbucks open! Having said that, it was enjoyable looking at my city in the sunshine and to see what visitors enjoy.

Isobel Fraser

Used to love the fringe but I think it's really expensive now. I don’t think it should go ahead this year, though.

Margaret Gillies

Won't go. Probably by August we can't go because we'll be back in lockdown.

Ludmilla Kosmina

They will not allow it when it comes to August. This is just an action to make all performances digital and transforming the festival into a digital one but still taking fees from the artists and those who will be interested to see the digital performances!

Margaret Cummings

So we have stayed in for over a year as we were told it was to take the pressure off the NHS. Now they are opening up Edinburgh to tourists – are they nuts? They don't give a monkey's about the people of Scotland.

Sean Evans

Yeah, I have missed the fringe - hurry up 2022. Hopefully it will be a wow as I am aware of the official return for August 2021. Hopefully it will be safe, but of course I’m not that shocked that it is returning.Unfortunately due to the virus there’s no chance I’ll be going. Next year has to be safer.

Frances Mckendrick

So Covid will be gone by August? Don't think so.

Gary Johnstone

In principle it's a good idea, but when you think of all the tourists that will flock to the city it isn't. Will they test everyone getting off planes? No! It could spell a potential disaster. I want normal again, we all do. But so soon? The sensible option would be to make it 2022, just to err on the side of caution.

Grant McNeil

Great news.

Andy Littlejohn

Shouldn't be happening!

Dave Flynn

Yes. Don't think it'll happen in quite the same way this year, though.

Tiger Cairns

That Covid is pretty clever to disappear just like that at the busiest time of year.

Graham Alexander

I've performed at the fringe in recent years. A very expensive but wonderful experience. I do wonder if this will really happen. The last thing any performer wants is to undertake a great deal of work only to have everything trashed at the last minute. Will be interested to see how this plans out!

Victoria Burgoyne

Fantastic, something to look forward to. So lucky to be an Edinburgher. Fringe is my fav time of the year.

Ross Gillespie

This is so reckless. Will everyone have been fully vaccinated by then? What about the South African and other strains? They’re charging around trying to locate 80 people in London because they’re so worried about the SA one. People from all over the UK and possibly the world will be wandering about the place, a lot of them drunk. It’s taken months and months to get to a situation where (if we’re careful) six people can meet in a garden, but by August apparently it’ll be OK for 2000 people to go to an outdoor event and 400 at an indoor one.

Jennifer Watson

Great, another lockdown come September.

Lorna Demarco-Pettigrew

Can we please just have our city to ourselves this summer? We are just about to start to have some kind of normality back. Overcrowded bars and restaurants in August is not going to help prevent either new strains or a second wave. Leave it until next year when we can see how the vaccine works!

Rai Chel

To try to do it at the normal scale is beyond insane. Probably reawaken the bubonic plague. Get ready for the new bad comedy strain of the virus and the improv strain, brought in from Improvland.