The History of "Plan My Fringe"

The Story so Far - by Maddie Henson, Sales Director, Henson IT Solutions

People often ask me how we arrived at the idea for Plan My Fringe. And most that assume there was a huge amount of investigation and market research behind it. But the truth is Plan My Fringe was the brainchild of two normal Fringe-goers (if there is such a thing 😉).

When my husband Mark and I met, as a great fan of the Edinburgh Fringe I was very quick to introduce him to it. Despite this I was very aware that introducing a complete newbie to the Fringe can be a challenge - the scale of the brochure alone is enough to put people off. But to my delight he was instantly hooked. However, half an hour and over 100 shows added to our must see list later, I panicked.

Mark on the other hand – always quick with an answer for everything calmly came up with a solution – he designed a spreadsheet to help us work out a schedule, far more efficiently than the human brain ever could, and the first "Plan My Fringe" was born.

Within 10 years this spreadsheet has gone from a small toy for two young lovebirds to what you see before you. This is the story.

• August 1947 - The Fringe is born

  8 uninvited theatre companies arrive at the official Edinburgh Festival and took over the cities smaller performance venues creating a whole new dynamic to traditional theatre festival. This group would soon be known as the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

• 1947-2006 - The Fringe Grows

  From its humble beginning, the Fringe grows into the largest arts festival in the world with half a million visitors to it in 2016. It is internationally renowned and some of the most famous names especially in comedy have started there.

  The result of this unprecedented growth however is that it becomes nearly impossible to navigate. People are simply unable to plan to see a fraction of what they would like and they are left feeling overwhelmed, whereas shows (especially the up and coming talent) have much smaller audiences than they might have.

• August 2007 - Maddie goes to the Fringe for the first time

  Before leaving for university I decided to treat myself to something that I had always wanted - a trip to the Fringe. So I ordered the brochure, and I was off.

  I had a truly fantastic time but even with a lot of knowledge about what is involved I'm still overwhelmed and am only able to get a fraction of the shows I hoped for.

• July 2008 - Maddie and Mark meet

  Whilst back for the summer from University I was invited to a local pub quiz and there I met the man I was going to marry – Mark Henson.

• January 2009 - Maddie convinces Mark to go to the Fringe

  As a great fan of the fringe and this time with someone to potentially go with, I soon set about convincing Mark to go to the Fringe with me. Not a difficult task when I related the wonderful time I had had the previous year. He soon agreed.

• June 2009 – The Fringe Programme arrives

  When the programme arrived Mark finally understood the scale of the Fringe and why I had raved about it so much. So we set about making a wish list of shows we would like to see. We went through the brochure with a fine-toothcomb and made a wish list of over 100 shows. Totally impossible for the human brain to handle and certainly not feasible in the week we were planning to be there.

• July 2009 – The ‘First’ Plan My Fringe

  Undeterred by the enormity of the task I sat down and tried to work out the best possible schedule of shows from our wish list, just like I had done on a smaller scale last time. This time however I quickly realised that it is beyond me and started to get stressed.

  Mark as the IT Director and Senior Programmer for his current company quickly decided that there must be an easier way of doing things, and created a spreadsheet with macros (apps to me and you) which did a lot of the work for you.

  It was quite rough and clunky (having been designed just for us and with no proper user interface to speak of) but it still took my rough attempt at a schedule with about 20 shows straight up 45 in a fraction of the time. Unsurprisingly this is the schedule that we followed for our first Fringe together.

• 16-23 August 2009 – The Fringe Proper (bragging alert)

  Our first Fringe as a couple was sensational and we had a fab time. Whilst up there in true Fringe style everyone we met was bragging about the number of shows they'd seen. That was until we showed them our schedule. It soon become clear that next to no one we met had been able to fit in as many shows as us. Consequently we left feeling really smug!

  

• Summer 2012 – our return to the Fringe

  Mark and I had been away from the Fringe for 3 years and the draw had got too much, so once again out came the spreadsheet, and we made some improvements to it. This time we were able to schedule even more shows.

  

  Once at the Fringe we no longer felt like novices, and this must have shown in our conversations with people we met, because this is when the discussions moved from people simply being impressed with our schedule to some early requests for using the tool!

• April 2016 – We form Henson IT Solutions.

  Times change and so do we. A baby later and we decided neither of us wanted to continue working for our multinational companies. So we take the decision to use our IT skills to found a company of our own. This company has the aim of providing services to make people's lives better.

• July 2016 – The birth of Plan My Fringe

  I honestly can’t remember who it was who said it but before we knew it we suddenly knew that one thing that absolutely fitted what we wanted our company to do was our Fringe Scheduler. So fresh with the idea Mark redesigned the calculations behind the spreadsheet for multiple users and we were off.

• August 2016 – Road testing

  Keen to see how the expanded tool would perform live, Mark and I took my sister and brother-in-law to the Fringe. As complete Fringe virgins we thought it would be good to see if we could use the existing tool to give them the best Fringe experience possible. We succeeded even better than we expected, and we were able to schedule every single show they wanted to see, and still allow them time to see the sites of Edinburgh.

  

• April 2017 – the "Plan My Fringe" Web Application goes live

  Flushed with the success of the previous year, by the time Fringe season approached the next time we were ready. Mark had spent the intervening time rewriting the clunky spreadsheet as a fully-featured web-application, so it could work for everyone, not just us. He also redesigned the calculation algorithm, and linked the app to the shows database so that all show details were available (instead of us having to type in our wishlist details manually). And he also came up with the user interface you now see before you.

  

• July 2017 – the IOS version goes live

  By this point from word of mouth alone we already had over 200 users, but we knew this was only the start, and the schedule had to be portable in order for people to be able use it in real life. So, in a race against time, just before the start of Fringe we released the IOS version. This was far more popular than the web application, but we were shocked when we had more than 2000 downloads by the end of the Fringe.

  

• late July 2017 – we are officially "Boffins" (according to Chortle)

  As a proof of how many shows we could see, we added all the shows to our Wishlist in bulk, so that we could see how many shows the algorithm could schedule in. We then sent out a press release confirming that it is possible to see 314 different shows in the 25 days of the Fringe, averaging over 12.5 shows a day and costing £1878! We published the schedule to prove that 314 shows were possible, or on a limited budget you could see 264 free shows.

  While this press release did not make too much impact, the Chortle web-site re-wrote our press release in their own style (read it here), calling us Boffins. Thanks Chortle, we are proud to be Boffins!

• August 2017 – the App in live

  Any excuse to go to the Fringe and testing Plan My Fringe was definitely important so off we went for our 4th Fringe together. This time with me pregnant with my second child and our first in tow!

  

  Whilst there, along with ensuring that we had our usual great time we did our first bit of active advertising for Plan My Fringe. Complete with personalised "Plan My Fringe" t-shirts we joined the hundreds of flyer distributers.

  Anyone who has ever been on the advertising side of the Fringe will tell you there are always stories, and it was no exception for us but some moments do really stand out.

  One moment I often remember is passing a flyer to someone as they walked past who turned to me slightly taken aback and even a little annoyed and asked "What is this, it's clearly not a normal leaflet?" I explained what it did and he grinned from ear to ear saying – "This is quite possibly the most useful thing anyone has given me this month!"

  My second favourite moment was when we had a gap which we had left for dinner in the schedule, so we let the app find a show for us on nearby. It was a Free Fringe event and it was a proper old fashioned audience interaction show. The artist looked at us all in our t-shirts and got us to stand up and explain what we did – our first Fringe performance.

• February 2018 – New Additions

  Henson IT Solutions expanded by employing 3 talented apprentices in 2017, which meant that Mark no longer had to do all the programming himself. He still did most of the Plan My Fringe work as it is his baby. And in February we had another real baby! But that didn't stop the business continuing with various projects and work for other companies, and the Android version of Plan My Fringe is being completed by one of our apprentices.

  

• July 2018 – New Features

  While "Plan My Fringe" was perfect for our method of scheduling the shows we wanted to see, it was not for everyone. Some people wanted it to do everything for them ("it should just Plan My Fringe for me!"). Others preferred far more control over what they wanted to see each day, but did not have a tool to do so. So we provided a solution for both types of people. So you can now Plan My Fringe in 3 different ways!

  • Classic - the way we prefer! Just look through the programme, and flyers while in Edinburgh, and if anything takes your fancy add it to the WishList and rate it depending on how much you want to see it. Then click Calculate to let "Plan My Fringe" fit as many of your shows in as possible!
  • Recommendations - let "Plan My Fringe" just Plan Your Fringe! Tell "Plan My Fringe" about the types of shows you like to see (and / or select a few shows that are the types of thing you like), and "Plan My Fringe" will make recommendations. Just add any recommendations you like to your Schedule (or just add all of them), click Calculate, and in a very short time you could go from nothing planned to having a complete Fringe Schedule produced for you!
  • Fringe Trail - for any particular day, pick a starting show or place and time, and see what's on nearby. Add it to your schedule, and then use "Plan My Fringe" to see what's on nearby after that show finishes. Repeat until you run out of energy or money! Great for squeeezing in as many shows as possible, reducing walking time, and seeing shows you wouldn't normally come across.

  
  

  And you can use a combination of any or all of these. We certainly will be!

• August 2018 – Take Off

  The iPhone app with the new features was released at the start of the 2018 Fringe, and the download and user count just took off, far beyond our expectations. Plan My Fringe was very quickly in the 2nd or 3rd position for any App Store searches relating to the Fringe, with higher ratings than the apps above it, and this was reflected in the large number of downloads and registered users. It was great to see our tool helping so many people. Thank you to everyone who planned their Fringe with Plan My Fringe!

• mid-August 2018 – Android Version Released

  The Android version was released around the middle of the Fringe, better late than never! We were determined not to release it until it had all the features of the iPhone version, and had been fully tested, resulting in a slightly delayed release. But it had a very good reception, and we will build on it for 2019!

• 2019 - more features and many more users

  In February we updated the web-site and both apps to use the 2019 Fringe data, so as shows were officially released in stages during the year they became immediately available on Plan My Fringe. And our user count and usage of the web-site and apps has continued to grow greatly during the year, far exceeding 2018 numbers in every area. We also introduced some new facilities during the year, including allowing a Random show to be selected, putting our own Fringe experiences into a Fringe FAQ, producing an interesting Fringe Stats page based on the Fringe data, and developing an online Fringe Map.

• Sync Plan My Fringe to your phone Calendar

  Only available with the mobile phone app versions of Plan My Fringe, users can at the click of a button Sync their Calendar Schedule with their iPhone or Android calendar! Reminders are set automatically, and the calendar item will automatically show a map of the venue and directions to it if requested. A very useful feature!

• 2020 - Plan My Fringe enters its 4th Year!

  Again in February we updated the web-site and both apps to use the 2020 Fringe data, so that shows were immediately available on Plan My Fringe. And during the year we will introduce more things that we have thought of or that our users have suggested.

• March 2020 - Edinburgh Festival Fringe cancelled due to COVID-19

  Sadly the 2020 Fringe had to be cancelled in 2020 due to COVID-19, and all shows on the system were marked as Cancelled. Plan My Fringe was put on hold until 2021. Our sympathies go out to everyone affected by the Fringe cancellation.

• 2020 - Other Projects

  As well as the dreadful human, social and economic consequences of COVID-19, the our team had several projects put on hold, including Plan My Fringe itself. But we turned our attention to other projects.

  Group Cards (https://www.groupcards.co.uk), a system that allows both physical and e-cards to be purchased and signed by multiple people had gone live a few months before the first lockdown, and took off far more quickly than it would have done without COVID.

  And during lockdown we also developed Anonyvoter (https://www.anonyvoter.com) to ensure online ballots for organisations, societies, clubs and political parties could take place remotely and cheaply. Both products have done very well, but don't worry, our support for the return of Plan My Fringe in 2021 will never be diminished!

  

  

• June 2021 - More details released for the 2021 Fringe!

  The Edinburgh Fringe society revealed more details about the 2021 Fringe. It will run from 6th to 30th August 2021, and the first shows will be available on 1st July. Some shows will be live in-person shows that meet government safety guidelines, some will be scheduled or as-live online performances, and some will be online on demand.

  As soon as we have the data we will make all shows available on Plan My Fringe 2021!

• July 2021 - Plan My Fringe returns for 2021!

  We now have the data, so can release Plan My Fringe 2021. We have had to tweak the algorithms to deal with "Online-Scheduled" and "Online-on-Demand" Performances, see the News page for how we have done this.

• August 2021 - Video Help Now Available

  Plan My Fringe produce a video walkthrough of all the main features of the app. Although this is a long (14 minutes) video, watching and understanding this video may save you a lot of time by allowing you to use the full power of Plan My Fringe!

  Please turn the sound up and make the window full-screen for the best results.

• July 2022 - the Edinburgh Fringe Society announce that there will be no official app for 2022.

  There was no official app for 2021, and we found a lot of people were just downloading Plan My Fringe simply for the Nearby Now option or browsing shows, rather than using the full power of the system. But that's fine by us, you can use it however you want to!

  Plan My Fringe had already been updated for 2022 earlier in the year, and we will keep it available for as long as people want to use it!

  We saw our download count and number of daily users increase enormously since it's previous peak in 2019, both ahead of and during the Fringe. We know so many shows had only been found by people using Plan My Fringe, we are glad we could help.

• August 2022 – Plan My Fringe Team are back at the Fringe

  Due to children and Covid, the team behind Plan My Fringe had not made it to the Fringe since the first year of Plan My Fringe in 2017. The number of downloads and users has increased enormously since then, as has the number of new features.

  Founders Mark and Maddie and developer Hasan, plus Maddie's mum and aunt and Mark and Maddie's 2 children were all in Edinburgh for the first full week of the Fringe, and had a great time!

  

  It was great talking to people who were using the app and getting your feedback and suggestions. We were also able to use some of the later features of the app ourselves properly for the first time.

  Many thanks to all those performers who saw us in the audience and asked everyone to give us a cheer, and all those who stopped us to give us compliments or suggestions. We will always do our best to help everyone at the Fringe!

  We now have a huge wishlist of enhancements from our conversations, so many more features are planned for 2023!

• February 2023 - Plan My Fringe Returns!

  After a great experience in 2022 and so many new users, we were of course going to be back for 2023! As new shows are added by the Fringe they will appear in Plan My Fringe. And we will have many great new features, so watch this space!

• August 2023 - New Features

  Some of the new features we were asked for were implemented, including viewing and searching for Venues (with lists of shows and spaces at each), Viewing Upcoming Shows, Hiding Provisionally Scheduled shows, and UI improvements especially on the apps. Feedback was very positive! We still have some changes we didn't include for this year, but we will make them for 2024.

  We also found that a lot of people are now using Plan My Fringe routinely, with many repeat users year after year using the system to its full potential. We're glad to have helped Plan your Fringe!

• February 2024 - Plan My Fringe Returns!

  Plan My Fringe is back for its 7th Year (or 8th if you count 2020 when the Fringe was cancelled shortly after we had updated Plan My Fringe). And we will have more enhancements available by the time the Fringe starts!

The Future...

Throughout the lifetime of the Plan My Fringe app, we are constantly asking for feedback. The new features for the last few years have directly come from these discussions but "Plan My Fringe" is still in its relative infancy.

We are adding features as people ask for them so what the future holds is largely in the domain of what you want. We continue to add new features as people ask for them or as we think of them.

There is still one aim that we have above all others however and that is simply to help people have the best possible Fringe.

If you want to binge - Plan My Fringe