Access to Fringe listings

All developers wishing to use the live Fringe data will have to build their applications using a demonstration dataset and submit them for review to ensure that they are complying with the relevant licence terms and presenting the data appropriately. This is particularly because many application developers will not have had experience with the particularities of Fringe ticketing and listings and therefore may not be sensitive to all the nuances of presenting and interpreting Fringe listings data in the way audiences expect.

In addition to general licence compliance, the review team will be checking the following points prior to granting approval.

The Fringe 24-hour Clock (AKA “Fringe Time”)

The Fringe website and programme use a 24-hour clock to display show performances. However, the Fringe day runs from 05:00 to 04:59, and events that start in the early hours of the morning are listed as though they are on the day before. Performance dates and times returned from the API will be in British Summer Time and applications are expected to handle and format "Fringe Time" appropriately for events between 00:00 and 04:59. For example, for a show that begins at 1am on Sunday 15th August:

  • The performance should appear at the bottom of the listings for Saturday 14th August, and not on the morning of Sunday 15th.
  • The performance day/date should be shown as Saturday 14th August.
  • The performance time should be shown as 01:00.

The same logic applies to end times - eg, an hour long performance beginning at 23:30 on Saturday 14th August should be listed as running from 23:30 - 00:30 on Saturday 14th August.

Genre representation

The Fringe is passionate about ensuring all types of performers from all backgrounds have equal position within the festival – it is part of what makes the Fringe so special. Therefore we strongly encourage apps to not cover individual genres alone.

Ticketing information

The vast majority of applications should simply display the price and concession prices for Fringe performances and use the website parameter to deep-link to full event and ticketing information on the Fringe website.

If you intend to use the more detailed response properties to show additional pricing, discount or concession information within your application we strongly advise you to discuss usage and requirements with us in advance, and we will check these details are being displayed correctly before approving live data access.

Please note that under the terms of the licence you must only use the links to edfringe.com provided by the API and must not link to any other ticketing site (including the venue's own site) from any content provided through the API.

Data Freshness

Festival listings data changes regularly throughout the year and in particular over the summer. To ensure your application is displaying accurate information, you should retrieve fresh data from the API at least every 24 hours. Please note that for performance reasons we do encourage caching of listings data - on your own servers and/or on client devices - so long as you refresh your cache regularly. You can use the last_modified query parameter to retrieve events that have changed since your the last update. For devices that may not have a permanent internet connection (eg iPod touch) you should include a mechanism to alert the user when the data may be out of date.

Requesting Approval

The Fringe approval process is not intended to be a hurdle, but we do want to ensure that the data is being used and presented accurately and consistently so as to avoid confusion for visitors and Fringe participants. For anything other than simple projects, you may wish to contact us before beginning work on your application to discuss your proposed usage.

To discuss your plans, or to request Fringe API access for an existing application, please contact us and provide as much information as possible, including:

  • the email you used to register for the API
  • a contact phone number
  • a simple one-line description of the application
  • a description of how your application will display and interpret the data
  • any relevant URLs and screenshots etc

After you have received initial development approval from the Fringe, you will be asked to build your application using the ?festival=demofringe data. This dataset models the live Fringe data but all titles, copy and similar text content has been randomised and/or replaced.

You will then need to submit your finished application for review, testing and final approval before we can grant your key access to the live festival data, and before you make your site public or submit your application to any app store.