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[title]So you’d like to go to the Edinburgh Fringe but you haven’t booked anywhere to stay yet – is it a practical option on a budget? The first thing to say is that for complicated-ish reasons there is currently a severe lack of short-term accommodation in Edinburgh during the Fringe, certainly compared with what there used to be, and the odds of you getting an incredible bargain on a gorgeous apartment on the Royal Mile are somewhere close to nil. However, don’t despair – here are five tips for sorting yourself out.
1. Throw (some) money at the problem
Airbnb can still be your friend, insofar as it does still have properties available, you just need to accept that come July or August you’re probably looking at over £100 a night for a private room unless you’re very lucky, and vastly more for a whole place. It’s a lot! And it’s been exacerbated by recent tightening of licensing rules by the city. But it does the trick, it’s cheaper if you can divide the price with friends, and if you can afford it then internalising the message ‘Edinburgh is pretty expensive’ is better than looking morosely for a bargain that probably won’t come.
2. Do it like a student
Part of the problem with short-term Fringe accommodation is that – long story short – a change in Scottish tenancy law a few years back meant that landlords were no longer able to put students on limited contracts with a ‘break’ for the Fringe. This doesn’t, however, affect student halls, which are by definition vacant in the summer and can usually be rented until fairly last minute, at prices that can at least accurately be described as ‘double figures per night’.
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3. Bunk up
If you look on the usual booking websites and find a miraculously cheap room in a central Edinburgh location, you’ve either hit the jackpot or you’ll discover it’s a dorm, shared with other people. Your instinct is probably telling you ‘absolutely the hell not’, but if you’re genuinely going to be out all day seeing shows and wanting to make a relatively short trip, it’s really worth considering in an effort to drive the price down.
4. Don’t stay in Edinburgh
This may sound a bit extreme, but once you leave Edinburgh the short-term lets crisis largely evaporates, so… don’t stay there. You can find somewhere much more affordable to kip in Glasgow, which is only an hour away by train – sure, that has its own complications and expenses, but if you’re taking in the Fringe as part of a holiday rather than hoovering up shows from 10am to 2am it’s well worth considering.
5. Scour social media
If you can be bothered to pore obsessively over Fringe-related social media, you’ll almost certainly find something decent – there are tens of thousands of people heading up for the Fringe, and many of them will have last-minute dropouts, sublets that fell through, and random rooms that need filling. If you’re thinking of staying for at least a week and can be bothered to scour the Facebook groups or search obsessively through Twitter, the odds are very high that you’ll be able to find a room at a decent rate still.