Blooming Disappointing

Handed a couple of spare tickets to 'Bloom', the opening event for the Edinburgh Festival (rather than the Festival Fringe, or as most broadcasters seem to have it these days, the Fringe Festival) it seemed too good an opportunity to pass up. The last couple of years at the Usher Hall, then against the Castle, have by all accounts been stunning.

Essentially it's a fancy son et lumiére show, this year relocated to St Andrew Square.

The initial organisation should have given a hint. After a great dinner in Wahaca, there were sections of pavement pretty much randomly cordoned off, and the entrance was a walk down George Street, to double back, with tickets being given nothing more than a cursory glance, and people beyond jumping the barriers. Then we all queued to get into the gardens. And time passed. And no-one said anything. And occasionally we'd shuffle forwards, while queue-jumpers irritatingly wandered by. Before I finally overheard someone with a card on a lanyard saying that the viewing area wasn't 'in' the gardens, but on the periphery.

Most people clearly didn't believe that and so steadfastly stuck to their queuing guns, while we sauntered off to a space by ourselves. Then some white lights sprung onto the buildings, and everyone went 'ooh'. 

And then the show actually started, with audio from a radio newsreel declaring the unconditional surrender of the Germans at the end of the Second World War. Which seemed perhaps less than welcoming to any of our Teutonic visitors. After that the show moved seemingly aimlessly with some background music, appearing to be moving from decade to decade of the festival. The music would shift slightly, and, say, the light show would go from occasionally shifting stripes in the jazz era to an eclipse for the sci-fi 80s (I think, it wasn't clear).

Our first spot as well showed up the shortcomings of the location, being far too close to the buildings to tell what was going on, and having to peer to one of the further away ones. Behind us a camp chap declared every shift to be 'amazing', while the girl he was with was somehow managing to contain her excitement. We moved, to see if walking round the Square would offer a better vantage, and the flat sides of the giant Deco building cornering George Street offered more clarity, if not wonder.

And then it was over, the loop restarting. We passed out the gates, a gap being unmanned by the ineffectual security through which ticketless members of the public could stream, to get a bus, the small fireworks display from the Castle timed to coincide with the end of the second run-through.

The Festival is open (the Festival Fringe opened two days earlier), though opening it with a party popper would have been a little cheaper...