Fringe benefits: does playing Edinburgh really help your career?

Four Australian artists reflect on their trip to the world’s biggest arts festival and consider whether the benefits of attending outweigh the emotional and financial costs.

Ranking behind only the Olympics and football’s World Cup as a ticketed affair, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe is a fabled event, one with tradition on its side and a contemporary reputation for making careers.

For London-based Australian cellist William Jack, a spot on this year’s festival bill was a life goal as much as a career step. ‘My attitude was that it was just a great experience that I can look back on [one day]. As a musician, it’s a really cool thing to tick off the old bucket list,’ he says.

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Daniel Herborn is a journalist and novelist based in Sydney. His writing has appeared or is forthcoming in The Saturday Paper, The Monthly, The Guardian, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, and others. He has also practised law at an Intellectual Property firm specialising in creative industries clients.