15000 free tickets released for EIF's opener

The genius multimedia artists of 59 Productions are once again helping open this year’s Edinburgh International Festival, working this time around with award-winning composer Anna Meredith on Five Telegrams. And announced today, there will be 15,000 free tickets up for grabs to this large-scale audiovisual show.

Aberdeen Standard Investments will be the title sponsors of the event, which takes the form of an outdoor performance created by composer Meredith and 59 Productions featuring illuminations and projections on the Usher Hall.

The event will see Lothian Road closed off, allowing audiences to experience the show from an arena in Festival Square, from which they can view 59 Productions’ projected animations on the outside of the Usher Hall, and hear the score composed by Anna Meredith.

Marking both the centenary of the end of the First World War and Scotland’s Year of Young People, Five Telegrams will feature young people taking part in the event as well as helping co-design it and hopes to provide a poignant reflection on the thousands of young lives lost in that war.

“Collaboration sits right at the heart of this event,” says International Festival director Fergus Linehan, “whether in the creation of Five Telegrams by Anna Meredith and 59 Productions, our co-commissioning of this new work with 14-18 Now and the BBC Proms, through to partnerships with the many supporters who make this event possible.”

The Fringe is always a strain on the bank balance, so any chance to take in a show for free should be welcomed, and this opening event sounds spectacular.

15,000 free tickets for Five Telegrams will be available from 10am on Monday 2 July. Head to www.eif.co.uk to find out more