Almost every Fringe performer I know loses their voice at some point, to some degree. Sometimes they have to pull shows.
In this post I break down what the research says about why Edinburgh Fringe is so hard on your voice, and what you can do about it before August.
I’m Alex, a voice coach. I do evidence-based vocal information and support for performers. I’ve been performing at the Edinburgh Fringe for almost a decade, and going as a punter (as a person in the audience) since I was about 17, so around 20 years. I’m very familiar with the Edinburgh Fringe. And yet, people lose their voice there all the time.
So: why? Why do we lose our voice in these high-intensity, long-run performance environments?
What is the Edinburgh Fringe — for the voice?
The Fringe is the biggest performing arts festival in the world. Thousands of performers from all over the world come to Edinburgh to perform in venues of varying types, sizes, and qualities. Some tiny and warm, some huge, some in the street.
As a performer, you just never stop. When you’re not performing, you’re going to see shows. When you’re not seeing shows, you’re out in the street, flyering, talking to people, trying to get them into your venue. Which means your voice is in use almost constantly, and not just during your show. If you’ve got an hour-long show, that’s intense, but often the bigger vocal stressor is flyering and socialising in noisy bars. You’re competing with background noise for hours, multiple times a day.
Three research papers
For this post I’ve been drawing on three papers specifically.
- A Brazilian study into street performers and the voice, one of the few studies I found that looks at street performing directly (Souza et al., 2019).
- A study on tour guides in Cappadocia, which focuses on the symptoms that emerge in extreme vocal environments (Birol et al., 2026).
- A laryngoscopic study where they put a scope into people’s larynxes and looked at actors, singers, and street performers specifically (Hoffman-Ruddy et al., 2001).
Street performing is probably one of the hardest, most vocally demanding types of performance you can do at the Fringe. So these studies give us a useful picture of what’s going on.
Why Edinburgh is so hard on your voice
A few things come up in the research as particularly damaging.
Temperature changes. Your vocal mechanism is constantly moving between environments. A hot venue, a cold street, a warm bar, a freezing wind. Even on a nice day in Edinburgh you can go from a sweaty cellar show to a cold windy Royal Mile in minutes. Your body is always trying to catch up, and the voice feels it.
Acoustics and background noise. Sound isn’t great in a lot of Edinburgh venues, and in the street it’s chaotic. There might be a bagpiper halfway up the street, which is pretty normal. You can’t just tell the bagpiper to be quiet. That’s their spot. So you have to speak loudly to rise above it, and if you’re not using the right methods to do that efficiently, you’re putting your voice under serious stress very quickly.
No real days off. Many Fringe performers have either no days off or only one over three weeks. I personally like to take one day off a week when I’m doing a show, but even then it’s not enough, because you never really get a day off. Vocal rest is one of the first things we recommend for a voice that’s struggling, and at the Fringe it’s nearly impossible. You have to perform every day, and if you’re not flyering, people aren’t coming to your show. The pressure to keep using your voice never lets up. By the end of the run, that accumulates.
Symptoms to watch for
These came out clearly in the tour guide research.
Hoarseness. A crackling, rough quality to the voice. You’ll probably notice it before anyone else can hear it, if you’re tuned in to your voice.
Dryness or tightness in the throat.
Difficulty speaking loudly. The louder parts of your performance are usually the first to go. If you’re hitting notes or volumes you were hitting last week and suddenly you can’t, that’s a sign.
Sudden voice loss. Waking up one morning and not being able to speak. I know plenty of performers who’ve been there. Some have had to pull shows, after months of rehearsal, thousands of pounds spent, an entire month of their life committed to the Fringe. That’s a real shame.
The two biggest risk factors
The research identified many risk factors, but two were statistically significant above all others.
1. Speaking loudly. If your show demands volume, this is your primary risk. Teaching people to speak loudly in an efficient, healthy way is a central part of what I do. There are methods, and they matter.
2. Speaking when your voice is already damaged. This is something I think is not a great contributor. It’s a huge contributor. People who already recognise their voice is sore, and go on stage anyway. The adrenaline of performing makes you forget a little, and you push further. I’ve lost my voice at the Fringe before. I knew what to do, being a voice coach, and I haven’t lost it since, touch wood. But pushing through when you already feel those warning signs is exactly when things escalate.
What’s actually happening inside your voice
When researchers used laryngoscopy on these damaged voices, four things came up most commonly.
Vocal fold oedema. Swelling of the outer surface of the vocal folds, which stops them vibrating properly. I personally feel it as a squashy quality in the voice. It can sound raspy, and some people quite like that quality, call it “sexy.” Don’t fall into that trap, especially if you’re still speaking loudly. Your vocal folds are essentially bruised, and then you’re smashing them together at high volumes to compensate. It’s going to get worse and worse.
Decreased vibration. Healthy vocal folds vibrate in a very efficient, gentle way. When they’re under stress, that vibration reduces. To compensate, people push more air across them, which makes the folds crash together even harder. It becomes a cycle.
Decreased mucosal wave. The vocal folds don’t close in a flat, sharp way. They close with a beautiful undulating wave. That wave diminishes when the voice is damaged, similar to what’s happening with decreased vibration.
High vascularity. Blood vessels visible right on the surface of the vocal folds. Healthy vocal folds look white. If they’re red and vascular, you’re at risk of bleeding in the vocal folds if you keep pushing. You can’t see this from the outside. There’s no visible wound to make you stop, which is part of what makes it dangerous.
So you’ve got swollen, inflamed vocal folds being pushed through three weeks of daily performance with no real rest. That’s why people lose their voice.
What you can do about it
Get the right support. There’s a lot of information online, some of it good, some of it not. When you’re in the middle of the Fringe, you don’t have time to wade through it. If you’re feeling those symptoms, go into vocal first aid mode and get specific, reliable guidance.
Hydrate properly. There’s a lot of research into vocal fold hydration and it matters. Edinburgh is an environment where it’s very easy to become dehydrated. You’re drinking alcohol, the environments are weird, you’re moving around, and often just forgetting. I’ve noticed dehydration in my voice before I’ve noticed anything else. Something that’s worked for me: carry a water bottle, fill it up at a bar, put a splash of squash in it so you’ll actually drink it, and keep sipping throughout the day. I’ve also largely stopped drinking alcohol during the Fringe. It dries you out and the voice notices.
Have a daily voice routine. Do a warm-up every day. Even a short one. A warm-up lets you check in with your voice and understand what it needs that day. It’s not necessarily about pushing the voice. It’s about tuning in and going, what do I actually need vocally today? When you’re performing at the Edinburgh Fringe, you are a vocal athlete. Treat yourself like one.
If you have questions about any of this, put them in the comments.
And if you’re performing at the Fringe this year, I’m running a voice support programme on the ground, with daily warm-ups, drop-in sessions, and practical vocal health support designed specifically for Fringe performers.
Join the Voice for Fringe waitlist (free): alexowenhill.co.uk/fringe
References
Souza, Mayara Kerolyn De, Cynthia Maria Barboza Do Nascimento, Jonia Alves Lucena, Zulina Souza De Lira, and Ana Nery Barbosa De Araújo. ‘O Uso Da Voz Em Artistas de Rua’. CoDAS 31, no. 2 (2019): e20180063. https://doi.org/10.1590/2317-1782/20182018063.
Birol, Namık Yücel, Esra Yaşar Gündüz, Ferhat Alkan, and Zübeyir Tutuş. ‘Prevalence and Risk Factors of Voice Disorders among Tour Guides in Cappadocia’. European Archives of Oto-Rhino-Laryngology, ahead of print, 28 May 2026. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00405-026-10328-3.
Hoffman-Ruddy, Bari, Jeffrey Lehman, Carl Crandell, David Ingram, and Christine Sapienza. ‘Laryngostroboscopic, Acoustic, and Environmental Characteristics of High-Risk Vocal Performers’. Journal of Voice 15, no. 4 (2001): 543–52. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0892-1997(01)00054-6.
In this video:
00:00 Why performers keep losing their voice
01:54 What is the Edinburgh Fringe (for the voice)
03:09 The three research papers
07:01 Symptoms to watch for
08:49 The two big risk factors
10:08 What’s happening inside the voice (4 findings)
12:54 How to avoid voice loss
15:28 And finally…
#edinburghfringe #voicecoach #vocalhealth #losingyourvoice #fringeperformer #vocalfatigue
