Welcome, world

Well it's finally here - the official opening day of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival - the largest arts festival in the world.  The streets are buzzing, there are street entertainers on every corner, every available space is being used as venues for the performances.  Thousands of performers take to the stages every day until the end of August, with genres including theatre, music, spoken word, circus, cabaret, comedy...the list goes on.  In 2015 there were 50,459 official performances in 313 venues - a slight difference to when it all began in 1947 when only 8 theatre groups turned up uninvited to perform at the newly-formed Edinburgh International Festival.