Wear Loose Clothing
You are going to be wandering around for at least 18 hours. A good proportion of that will be spent walking, queuing, standing and being jostled. Comfort is more important than style.
Wear Comfortable Shoes
While watching girls keel over on the cobbled hilly streets of Edinburgh is always funny, unless you want to star in someone's Fail online video then wear comfortable broken-in flat shoes. You will be walking and standing for a long time.
Dress For The Weather
This is Scotland. It could be glorious summer, it could be driving rain, it could snow, it could be a howling gale, it could be all of these things in the one day. Unless Reporting Scotland banter suggests the next 72 hours might not be awful then it's better to have too many layers and be able to take them off than not enough layers to avoid drowning or hypothermia.
Be Prepared For A LOT Of Walking
Edinburgh Virgins will look at a map and say, "Oh, I can cut from Waverley straight to the Royal Mile". Oh no you can't, not easily. There's a reason Advocate's Close has a pub halfway up. Edinburgh is hilly. Very hilly. Think San Francisco.
Know Your Venues And Timings
You can clump venues together, but there is no point booking a show in the Stand which finishes twenty minutes before your next show in the Underbelly. The crowds are too big, Look at the maps, understand the distances, estimate your transit times then double them.
Take Your Toilet Breaks
If you have the opportunity to go the loo, take it. You don't know when the next one will come.
Brunch Is Your Friend
Assuming you're on the go 'til 3 in the morning (and if you're not, why are you at the Fringe?) then 11AM is your main meal of the day. All the Best-Ofs and early Cabarets kick off around mid-day and if you're doing it properly then a quiet sit-down and contemplative meal is not something that is going to happen. So carb up early.
Forget Sightseeing - Unless It's In The Morning
The best time for sightseeing during August is between 6 and 7 in the morning. There are few sights as glorious as Edinburgh in the early morning sun, but it's easy to miss if you've been at Late'N'Loud until 4.
Forget The Big Names
The joy of the Fringe is finding new talent. Plan to be spontaneous. Book acts that you know, fine. But then build a schedule around that. Look for new talent, old talent, interesting things, challenging things ... seek out the bold and the different, the strange and the weird. Seek out the compilations, best-ofs, cabarets, dance, theatre, circus. The Fringe is the Heart Of Darkness - you should come out of it a different person. But, unlike Apocalypse Now, you should always get out of the boat ...
