The Road to Edinburgh: Tech, Busking, and Opening

Arriving at our technical rehearsal in theSpace@Venue 45

It's been a long road to get to the Edinburgh Fringe. This journey started about two years ago - and there has been a lot of time and energy spent to get us here. It's been a growth opportunity as well - learning from both the things that have gone well, and the things that have gone wrong.

On the Scottish border.

Spiking our stage blocks and working with projections

After 8 hours on a bus from London - we hit the border, and the ground, running. From our two hour technical rehearsal - that went way too quickly to feel fully comfortable opening - to hanging posters on The Royal Mile, and handing out fliers to encourage people to come see the show - this troupe has stuck together, gotten lost, worked hard, operated on too little sleep, walked until we can't feel our feet, and we're loving every minute of it.

The tech team at theSpace@Venue45 helped us set our projector, scrim, and lighting. We ran and adapted fight choreography and problem solved. We adjusted our show to a fourth space, found the exits and entrances, flipped some blocking, got used to stage blocks that don't lock in place the way ours do, got frazzled with the time crunch, and spiked our set.

Getting used to stage blocks and re-sizing projections

We spent the rest of the day out on the Royal Mile exploring and figuring out how to hand out fliers. It's a zoo out there, and there is definitely an art to getting people to notice your group. There are over 55,000 performances to chose from - so it's quite a job to get noticed. We found that companies hire people to hand out their fliers. We have found some people quite happy to find we are handing out our own.

Amidst all of the work - we are also finding time for fun - but we'll post about those things later. For now - we have our heads in the game for our opening night!

Working on lighting

Lessons Learned:

1. It's important to stick together, even when you're tired of each other.

2. There are a million stories to hear, if you're willing to listen.

3. It's not all about us...really.

4. It's a big, bright, beautiful world out there, and our little corner of it is really very small.

5. Art inspires us, troubles us, challenges us, unites us, and teaches us what it is to be human.

Ready to sell our show out on the Royal Mile.

We're thankful for all of the sponsors who helped us get here.

It's official - posters are up.