The Edinburgh Festival, the world's largest performing arts event to be held in August, has been canceled due to the new coronavirus, organizers announced on Wednesday.
"For the first time in more than seventy years, the five festivals that make Edinburgh the most important cultural destination each year in August will not be held" because of the pandemic, announced the organizers in a statement.
Over 4.4 million people each year
The event includes the art festival, Fringe, the film festival, the book festival and the Royal Edingurgh Military Tatoo, a marching band festival and one of the most crowded events. The festival brings together an audience of 4.4 million people and 25,000 artists from more than 70 countries each year.
According to the organizers, this makes it the second most important event after the Olympic Games. Scheduled this summer in Tokyo, these have been postponed to 2021. The origins of the festival date back to 1947, when the event was created with the idea of bringing together and reconciling peoples and nations through art.
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