But even at this stage I think it's fair to say that we've been reasonably successful with finding some decent accommodation, so I thought we'd share our house hunting experiences with you; in no particular order, here are some of the options we looked at and considered.
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| "It's worth it. It's worth it. It's worth it." |
Hostels, seem, on the surface to be the ideal go to option for the 'roughing it' comedian or visitor eager to spend some time at the festival without totally breaking the bank. Hostels are the home away from home for young people on the road from what I can gather both from my experiences and stories from anyone my age who has done any extensive traveling. Hostels come with all of the basics you would need, for what can often be quite a reasonable price, at least comparatively with everywhere else.
There is this useful list of Fringe endorsed hostels, helping you find a place you know will be legit. However, as with almost all of the accommodation in Edinburgh over August, the prices of these places can absolutely skyrocket, and huge costs make 10 bedroom rooms seem all the less appealing and thrifty. From our searches, the best prices we could find were between £800-£1300 a head for the full run of the festival.
From looking around, this is a pretty decent price - we found some places that were sold out at £100 a night, so you have to consider that this is the lower end, as well as quite far out from the strip meaning bus rides or crushingly long walks after a full day of flyering and performing. If you're only visiting for a few nights, a hostel could be a good option, but keep an eye out for the lower priced options, make sure you're not paying hotel prices for the same cot I mentioned before. Also worth mentioning, several of the places we looked at didn't have storage for valuable or lockers. If you're out all day, this seems to us to be pretty much essential.
Camping - Very Unattractive
This, I must admit, was an unpopular option, but by far the cheapest. At it's cheapest, a lot for a small tent would be about £30 a night, meaning between us it would be £10 a day, or roughly £300 for the full run. It's worth mentioning at this point that this cheap price is effectively the only advantage among a long list of serious potential problems with the idea.
- It's likely to be far out from the mile, wherever you go. Edinburgh is a city like any other, there are few places to pitch up a tent that are also a short walk from a bustling town centre.
- Security again could be a big problem. You don't particularly want to leave anything at all in a tent all day whilst you're out. Even if you take your valuables, anything you leave is effectively up for grabs.
- Tensions will fray, and you will become sick of it/each other. Going it alone you might be able to be miserable but drudge through it, but between three of you, enough time spent in the discomfort could stir up drama like lord of the flies.
- There is no comfort. After a long day of promotion and performing, lying on the the ground in the cold could be the world's biggest downer.
- Every little thing becomes a much bigger chore. Washing your clothes, yourself, cooking food, all of these things will require much more effort, to the point some days I imagine when you could not muster the energy.
These are some of the problems that just immediately spring to mind, but I don't doubt that there are many more. If anyone has survived performing at Edinburgh whilst camping for the full run, I have a lot of respect for that, even a small amount of envy, but I'm glad we avoided this choice. It really doesn't seem like an attractive long term solution, but again, if you're up for a few days, you could very definitely find that it saves you a few quid and if the weather's kind to you, it could be a fantastic and enjoyable decision.
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| The only other advantage I didn't mention |
A University Room - A Great Option, But Pricey
This is an interesting idea that we came across, and it seems to make a lot of sense. The one group of people, likely to have vacant apartments during the summer in Edinburgh, are students who don't live or stay up there outside of term time. There are several websites for finding halls to stay in during the Fringe and the prices as well as the quality seem to be fairly reasonable - it stands to reason that the uni really would have a lot of beds going spare. From looking it seems like you could be looking at around £1500 per person, making the more expensive end of the types of places we found, but considering this is your own place, under lock and key, porters, a desk, a kitchen and possibly even an ensuite, this could be a really great way to stay up there reasonably cheaply. In comparison with some of the other places you can find, the price really isn't astronomical, and seems to effectively be the only downside.
Gumtree and Private Lets - Absolutely the Best Choice in Our Experience
This, is undoubtedly the best option we could find, the one we chose, and my absolute resounding advice to anyone who is considering staying in Edinburgh for the full month of August. I went onto the internet directory gumtree, narrowed it down to Edinburgh, and posted an ad in the houses for rent wanted section. We posted everything we wanted, adding that we weren't afraid to rough it on floors or sofas, and even added in a ballpark figure for what we would want to pay. Just as an experiment, I took about what we would have been paying individually for some of the cheaper end of some of the earlier options, and made that the price between us. In less than a week, my emails were inundated with very generous people offering us wonderful apartments and set ups, often for less than our asking price. We honestly had all the choice in the world, some were flats to ourselves, others were a few beds to share in someone elses flat, and even offers to put us up as part of the family - one very memorable choice that we almost went for offered to cook us dinner each night.
In the end, we've chosen a one bedroom flat to ourselves with the decision that we would set up some air beds, and presumably rotate in some measure. We've gone with this option mostly for the location, being a very comfortable 10 minutes walk out from where we are performing, the flat allows us the most freedom we could imagine, and for a fantastic price.
Another measure we took, that I think would be advisable, was to go up to Edinburgh for a day to look around at a few places as well as to meet the potential landlords. Meeting and saying hello really allows both parties to feel much more comfortable with the situation, and despite how far out you might be from Edinburgh itself, the time and travel costs for the day are well worth the trip, to advise your decision. When we went up we really saw some wonderful apartments, it was staggering that they were being offered for such prices; plus we also got a good grasp of what it is like to get around Edinburgh on the bus (hellish), and so it really helped us make up our minds to go for a place that was very nearby to everything.
So there you have it. My main advice would be not to believe all of the rumours about all Fringe accommodation being extortionate, there are certainly some expensive places out there, in fact, there are a hell of a lot of them, but if you go to the individuals rather than the companies, you can really find a bargain. As has been my experience with most real estate markets, there is always a great panic whipped up that all the places are disappearing and that if you don't act immediately you're going to be left out in the cold. But this simply isn't true. Take your time, do your research extensively and don't worry about desperately trying to find a place before they all disappear, there are always places out there to find.
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