Tickets

All my Fringe tickets arrived this morning, which was a relief. Rather obssessively, I have split and sorted them into day-by-day order, together with my tickets for the Book Festival and the Edinburgh International Festival.

Considering the number of tickets and their not insignificant cost, it was a bit stressful waiting for them to arrive via normal post. Next year, I will definitely order and pick up from the box office.

But, for this year, they're all here and it now seems one step closer.

Bring it on...

All sorted

All my tickets for the Edinburgh Festival, Book Festival and Fringe are now ordered and secured (all 54 of them).

That, coupled with the fact I have around 10 photoshoots arranged, means this could be the best year yet...

Special mention, kudos and thanks to the Fringe's "Friends of the Fringe" scheme, which got me 2-for-1 tickets to around 75% of the shows I'm seeing. I reckon that's saved me in the region of £200 this year, which should help pay for the bloody taxi bill...

Well and truly started

Even though I was at work yesterday, it really felt like the first day of my full-on festival period.

Went up to the Royal Mile at lunchtime and took over 300 shots of the performers and artists there - including the ever-photogenic Two Sopranos (one of whom is pictured to the right).

Then, after work, I went to the Tracey Emin - 20 Years exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art. I didn't really know a huge amount about Ms Emin prior to seeing this, but it was a truly fascinating retrospective of her work to date. Using media ranging from video to tapestry (and with the infamous 'My Bed' installation an undisputed highlight), the exhibition was moving, harrowing, narcissistic, revealing, disturbing, confessional and compelling all at once.

Learning of her troubled childhood and traumatic life experiences (via a self-narrated video piece entitled 'My C.V. 1963-1997') put her provocative and arresting work into context and made me view her in a completely different light than previous. Emin deserves to be called an artist in the truest sense of the word, and as my friend observed, it will be fascinating to watch how her work evolves - and I'll definitely be making a point of seeking it out in future.

After the exhibition, I collected the final two tickets for the shows I have booked...then the call of the Spiegel Garden was too strong to resist. It's slightly smaller than last year, but the atmosphere is the same - whilst sitting outside drinking beer and watching people enjoying themselves, it didn't take a huge leap of faith to imagine you were in 1920s Berlin or similar.

Then, after a couple of drinks there, we moved on to Bristo Square, beside the Udderbelly tent where the likes of the Caesar Twins, Gerry Sadowitz and the Jim Rose Circus are all appearing. A couple more drinks and we spent the rest of the evening pretending to be invisible...

They're here...

My 50-odd tickets for the (50 odd) shows I'm going to see have finally arrived in the post (all bar 2, though I'm cautiously optimistic), meaning the prospect of standing in a 50 mile queue to collect them is no longer there.

Now, if only the weather would clear up...

Ticket fiasco

The Fringe online booking system has been dogged by problems this year.

Now it transpires the system they use to print tickets has broken down, and ordered tickets will have to be collected in person from some as-yet unspecified location.

Which, for me, either means queuing up for hours at their office in the High Street, or doing some Grand Tour of Edinburgh to collect them from the venues themselves...

Ah well, it should be worth it...

Godspeed, Royal Mail

I've just realised the tickets I'm waiting for the postman to deliver are the single highest-value item I'll have ever had drop through my letterbox...

I will be so relieved when I hear that particular thud on the doormat.