The Edinburgh International Festival is a festival of performing arts that takes place in the city of Edinburgh, Scotland over three weeks around the end of August. The International Festival invites top class performers of opera, theatre, music (especially classical music) and dance from around the world to perform.
A number of other festivals take place in Edinburgh at the same time, most notably the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, which started as an offshoot of the International Festival and has since grown to be the world's largest arts festival. Unlike the Fringe, performance at the International Festival is by invitation only, issued by the Festival Director. See Edinburgh Festival for detals of the other festivals.
The first International Festival (and the first Fringe) took place in 1947, and they have taken place every August since. The dates for the next few International Festivals are as follow:
- 2005 - 14 August - 3 September
- 2006 - 13 August - 2 September
- 2007 - 12 August - 2 September
- 2008 - 10 August - 31 August
- 2009 - 16 August - 6 September
External links