08/27/2026
Makers gotta make.
That’s the engine behind the Edinburgh Festival Fringe: and one of the clearest reminders of why artists keep going, even when the economics of making culture feel increasingly impossible.
More than 3,600 shows from 71 countries arrive in Edinburgh over three and a half weeks. Many will lose money. It ought to feel like a party at the wrong time.
It doesn’t. Not for a minute.
Edinburgh also offers a useful correction to the word “visionary.” Vision doesn’t have to mean scale. It can be eighty vintage toys, a hidden camera, and a table assembling a globe-crossing silent film in front of you. It can be one note in a basement room. It can be an audience member playing a border guard, with the same line landing differently every night.
Our latest Open Process post shares the shows The Orchard Project is watching: work developed in our rooms, projects by artists in our community, and independent recommendations doing something unusually alive.
Including Big Stuff, Penelope, Legendary, Lions, DeepFake, Around the World in 80 Toys, HAM, Rob Auton: JUPITER, Stamptown, Lou Wall, FORIEGNER, and Alex Edelman: What Are You Going to Do.
Read “Makers Gotta Make: The Edinburgh Shows We’re Watching For”: https://orchardproject.com/2026/08/27/makers-gotta-make-the-edinburgh-shows-were-watching-for/
Follow the artists. Look for the next version, the next city, the next room.
Support The Orchard Project: https://orchardproject.com/support-the-orchard-project/
