Edinburgh Festival’s Greatest PR Moments

From Mark Borkowski:

A good stunt certainly relies on taking risks… The aim is to engage people and make them laugh or exclaim with astonishment, whether they see the stunt or read about it in the papers. You’ve got to push a stunt as far as it will go without actually hurting people


Cunning stunts: Edinburgh Festival’s greatest PR moments
by Mark Borkowski
The Independent
9 August 2009

Edinburgh old-timer Mark Borkowski pays tribute to one of the festival’s finest art forms: the publicists’ tricks that propel certain performers centre stage

1a_231878d-200This is the year to celebrate the festival stunt – the quick and naughty publicist’s plaything, constructed to achieve mass media attention. Publicity stunts have always been a vital ingredient of the Edinburgh Festival mayhem. They bring a creative flourish and give the shows life outside the rarefied Scottish climate.

Some have suggested the stunt is an endangered species, but I believe it is an art form as relevant as any performance on view in August, so I have set up a Twithibition to celebrate great stunts of the past. Each one has been captured in poster form by the design god David Hillman, based around photographs by Geraint Lewis and located at the home of the original stunt.

Click here to launch Mark Borkowski’s Top 10 Stunts. Continue reading “Edinburgh Festival’s Greatest PR Moments”