Wednesday 8 August 2012

Frazzled by the Fringe

This is a bit out of order...I should have written this up before but have only just calmed down enough to do it.
On Saturday 4th August we decided to visit the Fringe on the spur of the moment. My idea. Gawd knows why as I do not do well with spur of the moment. I need to plan, make sure I know where I'm going, check out the reviews, figure out the best way to get there and make sure we have supplies for the long journey ahead.
Last year we went into Edinburgh to soak up the Fringe atmosphere. Kiddo was still in a pushchair which caused some arses to comment that kids should stay at home as they get in the way.
Back to this year. I duly check out the Fringe brochure and opted for Monsters Got Talent. However, when I went to book online, I was a bit taken aback by the 90p booking fee for EACH ticket which is added on top of the credit card fee . So we decide that we will instead go in and just go to the box office for our tickets. VERY BAD mistake. A long wait in the queue with a hyper child raised my blood pressure no end.
TIP: if you pre-order tickets, don't join this queue. You can go to the Information centre and print out your tickets from electronic machines. You have to be psychic as no sign tells you this.
TIP2: do not send hubby off to a theatre on the off chance of getting tickets while you stay in the queue with hyper child.
TIP3: THIS IS A SERIOUS ONE. Before parting with any money make sure you know where the venue was. When kiddo and I got to the counter, we were too late for Monsters Got Talent. So had to find another show. Which I mentioned to the booking person (I shan't use the term assistant as that would imply she would give assistance). Quick flick through and we chose Purves Puppets Nessie the Loch Ness Monster show. £8 each. As I couldn't reach hubby on the phone I bought the tickets. Only at this point was informed that I would need to get a taxi as the venue was quite far outside of the city centre. WHY not mention that before hand especially as refunds or exchange are not allowed.
So a quick dash outside to wait for hubby then another dash to find a taxi and then a lot of stressing on my part that this spur of the moment jaunt was becoming quite costly.
The show was OK. Kiddo said she enjoyed it however, I think a lot of it was beyond her understanding. I also felt that paying that amount of money to sit in a church hall and travel so far from the Fringe main area was not. In fact for me the best part of the day was the bus ride back to town through some really pretty areas of Edinburgh.
TIP4:  AVOID THE FRINGE unless you are spontaneous and happy to go with what happens, don't mind crowds or arses, know the city very well and are willing to queue for a long, long time!

2 comments:

Carole said...

It's always good to vent sometimes! Hope you are having a good week. Thanks for popping by to Carole's Chatter. Are you a follower? I didn't see you in the list but maybe you have another GFC name? Cheers

Twisted Scottish Bastard said...

AH, the wonders of modern communication.

We lived only an hour's journey from Edinburgh, but we never went to the Festival nor the Fringe.

To quote my Beloved:"Too many weirdos"