I've been to Edinburgh four times, as a student, tourist, reviewer, festival worshipper and finally start-up theatre producer and director. I have loved it every time, and so do hundreds of people for whom the festival is an annual ritual; a pilgrimage north to worship at the altar of possibility and cultural variety.

This year (2008) alone, 2,087 other shows were there too. There were 31,320 performances in 247 venues. There would, presumably, have been 31,322, but two of ours were called off because the torrential rain flooded the Iron Belly. I bought wellies. We kept grimacing. The show went on.

As for the rest of my time, I tried to see all the shows that were this year's hits. They were all sold out. If they weren't sold out they cost me a crazy, un-credit-crunch amount of money (I'm sure that six years ago everything was four or five quid, now I was routinely shelling out nine and more). In response to this gentrification, the new Free Fringe movement has sprung up, revisiting the original spirit of rebellion which brought the first student companies to hang out on the margins of the Edinburgh International Festival all those years ago. So I saw a lot of shows that were not this year's hits. None of them were sold out. Some of them were really, really good. I saw some great theatre. I saw some genius comedy. I saw some shows that were so unforgivably dire I'd have left if I wasn't reviewing them. I got wet. I got happy. That was my Edinburgh 2008.

So what criteria should you, a would-be theatre-maker (I'm using the large tent approach), use to see if Edinburgh's worthwhile?

The briefest skim of Fringe history mirrors the last fifty years of theatre history. Peter Cook, Alan Bennett, Dudley Moore, Stephen Fry, Emma Thompson, Hugh Laurie, Tony Slattery, Paul Merton and Caroline Quentin, Frank Skinner, Steve Coogan, Mark Watson, Rory Bremner have all played and drunk here. The League of Gentleman, The Johnny Vegas Show, The Mighty Boosh, Rosencrantz and Guildernstern are Dead, Black Watch all premiered here. What's not to hope for?

Do you have a great idea and great artists to make it happen? Great - here's the place to showcase it. London and international transfers are possible. Awards are there to be won. Critics are there to be wooed and wowed. Scouts and agents are there to impress. A mass audience is sitting on your doorstep, eager to be persuaded that they should spend their money on seeing your show rather than on the gas bill.

Do you need contacts? Sure thing. Edinburgh's a cauldron of talent and talented people. You can try and hang out in Brook's - the Pleasance Dome haunt - to see and be seen, and get assaulted by outraged directors. You can fail to get into Brook's and hang anywhere else in the city - and chat to tremendously interesting and talented people (in their opinion if not yours). You may meet the Fry to your Laurie, the French to your Saunders, the Lucas to your Walliams. You may meet an agent, a promoter, a talent scout. Or you may just pull.

Do you mind playing to audiences of three? Fabulous. You will on at least one day. With 2,087 other shows for audiences to choose from this does not necessarily mean that you have failed. Do you want to put on a show in a church? A cave? A pub? A street? Go for it. Do you like marching up and down a hill pushing fliers on any other person walking up and down the same stretch of ground? Wonderful. You and 2,087 other producers will be in good company on the Royal Mile. And you can catch the street theatre as you do it.

Do you want to spend a month in a beautiful city? Marvellous. You can eat, drink, dance and walk to your heart's content. That's if you can take the time off from flyering. Do you want to spend a month absorbing as much theatre and getting as little sleep as physically possible? As an addendum for this - do you like coffee? Super. I recommend Black Magic, Always Sunday, Kilamanjaro and the yellow café at the top of the Royal Mile.

Do you need a set of anecdotes to take forward into your stellar artistic life to come? Or to liven-up dull days of suburban middle-age when your idea of cultural absorption will be Angelina Ballerina and Disney on Ice?. You'll get them.

So why not go to Edinburgh?

There are very few reasons but the big one is Money. Having it, making it. Take a look at the Fringe website (www.edfringe.com). You need upwards of £3,000 to get the smallest show off the ground. Where's the money coming from when you make a loss (see audience numbers, above)?

Second, the work. If you don't want to exhaust yourself to make your show go places, forget it. This is no place to be a diva. If you're going to be on the stage, expect to spend the other 23 hours trying to get other people to come and see you there. If you're already a fledgling company, you'll find that as you're finishing one show at the end of August you're starting the prep for the next the following year. The workload can be punishing, before, during, after.

Third, instant glory. If it's all you want, apply to Big Brother. There are over 2,000 shows and the critics and the public are only talking about ten. The shows that do best in the press (and by best I mean coverage and not necessarily stars) are the ones by companies that have a reputation already, or have done ridiculous amounts of pre-publicity work to coerce press and websites to pick them out of the thousands of other shows making similar phonecalls. If you need that critical billing, the need for preparation cannot be overstated (see work, above).

But that really is it. The excellent EdFringe website will set you off on a remarkable journey - if it's a journey you want to take. And from my experience? Defying flood, pestilence (Edinburgh flu) and a two-star review, we flyered for Scotland and called journalists for England - and the audiences went up. We were pretty happy. The rain still rained, but the reviews turned to four- and five-star ratings, and Stage Award nominations. We were happier still. We worked damn hard. We were lucky.

Honestly? It may not be for you. One thing's for sure - me and my snakeskin wellies will be back.

END

(c) Ruth Brock 2 October 08

Ruth Brock worked on productions at Edinburgh Fringe 2008 and reviewed for Fringe Report

Fringe Report (c) Fringe Report 2002-2012

www.fringereport.com