Edinburgh International Festival

Crowds on the Royal Mile during the Edinburgh International Festival, 2008.

Edinburgh International Festival, international festival of the arts, with an emphasis on music and drama. It was founded in 1947 by Rudolf Bing and is held for three weeks each summer in Edinburgh. Its theatrical offerings include plays by major international theatrical companies; plays premiered at the festival include T.S. Eliot’s The Cocktail Party (1949) and Thornton Wilder’s The Matchmaker (1954). The adjunct Edinburgh Festival Fringe attracts amateur theatre groups and has launched works such as Beyond the Fringe (1960) and Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1966). Musically, the festival offers concerts, recitals, and operas by international companies, orchestras, and soloists.