This year the Edinburgh Festival Fridge hosts nearly 50,000 performances. Many of these are street performances, held along Edinburgh's Royal Mile.
This weekend saw the close of the 2014 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. The annual event is the world's largest arts festival. According to the Fringe's organisers last year's Fringe saw 273 venues hosting 2,871 shows, staging 45,464 performances, by 24,107 performers from over 47 countries. Shows range from celebrity theatre shows to street performances on Royal Mile, such as balancing jugglers.Jeff J Mitchell/Getty ImagesThe Fringe is home to many alternative and un-traditional performances, such as Livewire Theatre Company's acclaimed retelling of Oliver Twist, set in 1945 Berlin, in the last days of World War II.Jeff J Mitchell/Getty ImagesThe musical Jammy Dodgers Go Underground by Pandora's Productions tells the tale of Victorian street children who are imprisoned in a workhouse, by escaping through sewers. The theatre troupe picked an unusual way of promoting this children's show.Jeff J Mitchell/Getty ImagesThe Taki Maori Haka Experience was one of the international acts at the Fringe. The group, from Auckland, New Zealand, performed haka (dance), waiata (song), moteatea (poetry), tu taua (weaponry) and whaikorero (oratory), for crowds on the Royal Mile. Here, Te Matatini Kapa Haka Aotearoa performs the Haka - the Maori war dance made famous by the All Blacks rugby team.Jeff J Mitchell/Getty ImagesThe Sushi Tap Show comedy-dance-circus act could be the only time when a Japanese man dressing as a 10 year-old playing a recorder, while female tap dancers perform the Riverdance around him, could ever make sense.Jeff J Mitchell/Getty ImagesWith nearly 50,000 shows running during the course of the Festival, performers have to work hard to get audiences. Improvisational comedy troupe ShellShock! had an original - if somewhat messy - way of getting the word about their show out: the performers stuck themselves to lampposts, using promotional posters.Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images
This year the Edinburgh Festival runs until the 25 August.
