We are telly addicts: Edfest.tv - Edinburgh Festivals 2008

Everyone knows sifting through the plethora of promotional material to find something to go to in the festival can be time consuming at best, and The Skinny and edfest.tv believe watching previews of shows could be invaluable for the discerning festival attendee. edfest.tv, as the name suggests, are the Edinburgh festivals' online television channel. Their mission: to root out the highlights, low lights and best sights of the Edinburgh Festival in all its glorious guises, and capture them on video.

In 2007 edfest.tv produced almost 200 video previews and this year they’re doing the same thing but better. Everyday, their production crews will be out in Edinburgh to chat to artists and audiences, gleaning the the gossip and capturing the glitz before editing the evidence within 24 hours, and uploading a host of new shows to the interweb at edfest.tv. You can watch the picks of what they have been up to throughout August's madness, on the video player at www.theskinny.co.uk and on The Skinny's sister publication Fest's site www.festmag.co.uk.

Of the festivals, the interviews they have lined up include some of the biggest stars visiting the country: Tracey Emin will chat about her biggest ever retrospective, taking place at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art. Britpopper turned musing journo Alex James will talk to Edinburgh Book Festival audiences and edfest.tv about his novel A Bit of a Blur. Plus, The Skinny Selected EBF author Chuck Palahniuk, who is in Edinburgh to talk about his new, stomach-turning novel Snuff, is also in line for a chat. Along with a long list of interviewees, edfest.tv will also be chatting with famous funny people such as Reginald D Hunter, Jason Byrne, Jim Jeffries, Lucy Porter, Miles Jupp, and Rick Shapiro.

On top of this madness, edfest.tv are producing Richard Mackney’s edfest.tv Show, a free chat show every Thursday in the Pleasance Courtyard, starring yet more celebrities such as Mark Watson, Andrew Maxwell and Jim Bowen.

Not ones to ignore the masses, edfest.tv will also broadcast the opinions of the most important festival critics of all - the audience - so you can view some real feedback on shows and not the PR-driven spiel. Moving along the same editorial vein as The Skinny, edfest.tv aims to have every cultural base covered, from comedy to art, theatre to music, and books, ensuring the choice is as diverse and accessible as ever. So, all round, a pretty valiant effort: with Fest bringing you free coverage of the festivals twice a week in print (available in all your favourite festival venues), edfest.tv bringing you a plethora of video previews, and The Skinny filling you in on everything else, you can't really go wrong in Scotland in August.

Check out edfest.tv at www.edfest.tv, or go to www.theskinny.co.uk for a look at some of the pics of the festival.