How long did the award run in which the Best Newcomer at the 2008 Edinburgh Festival Fringe was also a notable finalist?
decade
Sarah Millican
Sarah Jane Millican (née King; born 29 May 1975) is an English comedian.
 Millican won the if.comedy award for Best Newcomer at the 2008 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
 In February 2013 she was listed as one of the 100 most powerful women in the United Kingdom by Radio 4's "Woman's Hour".
BBC New Comedy Award
The BBC New Comedy Award first appeared in 1995 and were considered to be one of the top UK comedy newcomer awards until they were axed in 2006.
 It was announced in the summer of 2006 that they were being replaced by a nationwide talent hunt that places its emphasis on sketch writing and filmed performance.
 During their decade long life span the finals of this event have boasted many well known names that have continued to work in comedy to great acclaim - amongst the winners of the award are: Julian Barratt (1995), Marcus Brigstocke (1996), Paul Foot (1997), Josie Long (1999), Alan Carr (2001), Nina Conti (2002), and Rhod Gilbert (2003).
 Other notable finalists include Peter Kay, Lee Mack, Russell Howard, Daniel Kitson, Justin Lee Collins, David O'Doherty, Shappi Khorsandi, Chris Addison and Sarah Millican.
Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society
The Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society is the organisation that supports the running of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the largest arts festival in the world.
 The Society was established in 1958 to provide a centralised information and box office service for the Fringe, which had grown in numbers since eight theatre companies had effectively "created" the Fringe by performing uninvited alongside the Edinburgh International Festival in 1947. The Edge Festival
The Edge Festival was an annual music festival held in Edinburgh, Scotland, during August of each year.
 Formerly known as T on the Fringe, The Edge was part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the world's largest arts fringe festival (to the larger Edinburgh Festival).
 Unlike other music festivals, The Edge did not take place at one location, with performers instead playing numerous venues across the city during the month.
 The festival was founded under the T on the Fringe name by DF Concerts and Tennent's Lager, with DF continuing to promote the festival after the departure of Tennent's from 2008 until 2012. Alex Edelman
Alex Edelman (born 1989) is an American stand-up comedian based in New York.
 His show "Millennial" won the Edinburgh Comedy Award for Best Newcomer at the 2014 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the first American to do so since Arj Barker won in 1997.
 Chris Cox (magician)
Cox performed his first major show – entitled "Chris Cox He Can Read Minds?"
 – at the 2006 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
 Cox's second show, "Everything Happens for a Reason" ran at the Gilded Balloon during the 2007 Fringe before a one off performance at the Arts Theatre in London's West End.
 His show "Chris Cox : Control Freak" premiered at the 2008 Edinburgh Festival Fringe at the Pleasance after which it had a UK Tour and finished with a performance at the Southbank Centre in London.
 He also performed with Frank Skinner, Jonathan Ross, Tim Minchin and featured on the television programmes The Culture Show and The Mentalist Revealed. Josie Long
Josie Long (born 17 April 1982) is a British comedian.
 She started performing as a stand-up at the age of 14 and won the BBC New Comedy Awards at 17.
 In 2006, she won the If.comeddies Best Newcomer award at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe for her show "Kindness and Exuberance".
 Josie has been nominated for the Edinburgh Comedy Award for Best Show three times.
 In 2012, Long and director Doug King produced two short comedy films in Glasgow called "Let’s Go Swimming" and "Romance and Adventure", which were nominated for a BAFTA Scotland New Talent Award.
 She is married to Johnny Donahoe . Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2003
The 2003 Edinburgh Festival Fringe was the 56th Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
 The Fringe ran from 3–25 August 2003 and presented 1541 shows over 207 venues.
 2003 was the first year that over one million tickets were sold at the Fringe. D C Jackson
Daniel Craig Jackson is a Scottish playwright, born in 1980.
 His first full-length play "The Wall" premiered at the Tron Theatre in Glasgow in 2008.
 It was produced by Borderline Theatre Company and was nominated for several awards including the Best New Play at the Critics' Awards for Theatre in Scotland and the Saltire Society Scottish First Book of the year.
 The sequel "The Ducky" was also produced by Borderline Theatre Company and toured in 2009.
 In 2010 he finished his "Stewarton Trilogy" with "The Chooky Brae".
 His play My Romantic History' (which starred Iain Robertson) won a Scotsman Fringe First at the 2010 Edinburgh Festival and sold out its run at the Bush Theatre London.
 He also took part in the Bush Theatre's 2011 project "Sixty Six Books" where he contributed a piece based upon a book of the King James Bible.
 In 2012 Jackson's play The Marriage of Figaro, an adaptation of the stage comedy by Beaumarchais and later opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was premiered at the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh.
 In 2013 Jackson's play Threeway premiered at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Edinburgh.
 In 2014, another of Jackson's work Kill Johnny Glendenning received its premiere at the Lyceum before transferring to Glasgow's Citizens Theatre. Edinburgh Festival Fringe 1948
The 1948 Edinburgh Festival Fringe was the second edition of what would become the world's largest arts festival, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
 It was in this year the word "Fringe" is commonly accepted as having first been associated with the event, after it was used by an Edinburgh Evening News critic.
 The term would come to define the event, and spawn the genre of fringe theatre.
 It was, however, still several years before it became common parlance in connection with the event or theatre in general, and also some time before any formal organisation of the event took place.