Our fabulous venues at the heart of the city

Please note that information on this page applies to our in-person programme in Edinburgh.

C aurora – our premier city centre hub venue

Features

Our newest hub venue, C aurora features multiple performance spaces in one location, centred around a welcoming courtyard. Lauriston Halls and the Sacred Heart Church have a distinguished festival tradition dating back to the earliest days of the Fringe. The main house seats 115-189 in end-on format, and up to 225 seats in thrust format, and offers a large stage and enhanced technical facilities. It is especially suited to for larger-scale theatre, dance, circus, musical theatre, music and children's shows. The flexible black box studio seats up to 50, and offers a choice of end-on, thrust, in-the-round, traverse, corner and cabaret layouts, and ideal for smaller-scale theatre, physical theatre, dance, music, cabaret, comedy, spoken word and storytelling. The ornate church space is ideal for music, choral works and site-specific theatre and performance, with options to perform in theatre format at the front of the nave to up to 300 audience, or in studio format in a flexible space at the rear of the nave for up to 50. The courtyard can be used for outdoor performances.

Location

C aurora is on Lauriston Street, just off West Port and Lauriston Place, close to the Grassmarket, West End, Lothian Road and Tolcross, offering easy access from all directions. There a café and bar in the courtyard. The venue is fully accessible for audience members.

View spaces at C aurora here

C aquila – original Royal Mile twin-space venue

Features

Our popular Royal Mile venue at the Roman Eagle Lodge. One of the original Fringe venues, C aquila features the atmospheric 91-seat end-on temple theatre, with wood-panelled auditorium and a popular end-on 55-seat studio. Both spaces have a cabaret layout option.

Location

C aquila is the top of Johnston Terrace, opposite the international Festival Hub and close to C cubed. Access to performance spaces is by stairs (seated chairlift available).

View spaces at C aquila here

C cubed – historic Royal Mile venue with flexible space

Features

Our Royal Mile venue at the Celtic Lodge, Brodie's Close, C cubed is one of the original Festival venues in an atmospheric 16th century building. The main space is a versatile flexible format black box theatre with raked seating for up to 79, offering thrust, in-the-round, and traverse formats, and an end-on studio format option, with varying stage sizes for up to 59 seats (52 as standard). All formats can have a cabaret layout option.

Location

C cubed is on the Lawnmarket (Royal Mile), close to the International Festival Hub and Fringe Office, close to C aquila. There is a courtyard, café and bar. Accessible via stairs only.

View spaces at C cubed here

C site specific – thinking outside the black box

Off-site venues and on-site found spaces

We welcome applications from site-specific, site-responsive, and found-space shows, from immersive and installation performance, from promenade performance and street theatre. We regularly programme work into found spaces within our existing venues, and our programme has featured shows performed in spaces as diverse as castles and other historic places, attics and cellars, a hairdressing salon, a bus, a toilet, churchyards, car parks, gardens, and the closes and courtyards of the Old Town. We can assist with finding site-specific locations, or with licensing and managing locations already identified.

New venues/other options

New venues can become available at any time, and some of our venue and spaces can be reconfigured according to need, so if you are looking for a format or capacity not listed, please get in touch, as we may be able to help.