Who is popular today?

There’s a freshness to festival director Jenny Niven’s programming (and the design of the actual physical programme) that perfectly complements its new venue at the Edinburgh Futures Institute (the old Royal Infirmary). The daily 10am First Edition strand she has introduced in the Spiegeltent at which journalists discuss the day’s news, is a case in point: these could be boringly uninformative or excitingly unpredictable, but as what you pay is up to you, they might be a risk worth taking. Niven gets the ball rolling herself on the opening Saturday slot by picking out the highlights of her own festival (Spiegeltent, 10 August, 10am). Here are a few of mine. Ones marked with an asterisk are live-streamed.