Edinburgh events this week

Where to go in Edinburgh: events, concerts and shows worth your night

Edinburgh is the festival city, and for three weeks every August it has more performances a day than anywhere on earth. The rest of the year it is a compact capital with a grand concert hall, a comedy club that launched a generation of British stand-up, and a warren of Old Town cellars where new bands play seven nights a week. Below is where to go in Edinburgh for a night out, with addresses, and what tends to be on when.

Concerts and live music in Edinburgh: the Usher Hall to the Cowgate

The Usher Hall (Lothian Road, EH1 2EA, usherhall.co.uk), a 2,200-seat Edwardian hall, hosts the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and the touring acts too big for the clubs. The Queen’s Hall (85–89 Clerk Street, EH8 9JG), a Georgian chapel with its pews intact, does chamber music, jazz and folk. The Cowgate, the street below the Old Town’s bridges, is the grassroots strip: Sneaky Pete’s (73 Cowgate, EH1 1JW, sneakypetes.co.uk), a 100-capacity room open seven nights a week that regularly makes lists of the world’s best small clubs, the Bongo Club, La Belle Angele and the Mash House. Summerhall (1 Summerhall, EH9 1PL), a former veterinary school on the Meadows, has two gig rooms, a brewery and a distillery.

Comedy in Edinburgh: the Stand and the Fringe

The Stand Comedy Club (5 York Place, EH1 3EB, thestand.co.uk) is the room where most of Scotland’s best-known comics started, with shows six nights a week and free improv on Sundays; Monkey Barrel on Blair Street is the newer rival. In August the Fringe turns the whole city into a comedy festival, with hundreds of shows a day from the Pleasance, Assembly, Underbelly and Gilded Balloon hubs around George Square and the Free Fringe in the pubs.

Theatre, dance and Edinburgh nightlife

The Festival Theatre (13–29 Nicolson Street, EH8 9FT) takes the opera, ballet and touring musicals, the Royal Lyceum on Grindlay Street produces plays, and the Traverse on Cambridge Street is the new-writing theatre. Nightlife is in the Cowgate and Grassmarket clubs below the Old Town and along George Street in the New Town; Scottish licensing runs later than England’s, with clubs open until 3 am and later during the festivals.

Art galleries and museums in Edinburgh

The Fruitmarket (45 Market Street, EH1 1DF, fruitmarket.co.uk), by Waverley Station, is the free contemporary gallery with the best bookshop in the city. The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, two buildings in parkland in the West End, and the Scottish National Gallery on the Mound are free too; the Talbot Rice Gallery at the university and Collective on Calton Hill fill the smaller end. The Edinburgh Art Festival in August opens dozens of shows at once.

Edinburgh festivals and events by season

• Winter: Hogmanay, three days of street party, concerts and fireworks around New Year, and the Christmas markets on Princes Street Gardens from late November.
• Spring: the Beltane Fire Festival on Calton Hill on 30 April, and the Edinburgh International Science Festival in April.
• Summer: August: the Fringe, the International Festival, the Military Tattoo on the castle esplanade, the Book Festival and the Art Festival, all at once; book accommodation months ahead.
• Autumn: the concert and theatre seasons reopening in September, and Samhuinn on Calton Hill on 31 October.

Things to do in Edinburgh tonight and this weekend

The listings above are the live version of all this: every concert, show, club night and exhibition on in Edinburgh tonight, tomorrow and this weekend, with times, prices and tickets, updated every hour.