Fringe's new box office holds up

The Edinburgh Fringe box office has broken all records for its first day.

Between 10am and 4pm today, a total of 35,350 tickets were sold, worth a total of £275,873.

The performance is in stark contrast to the chaos of last year, when the system collapsed on its first day in operation, causing problems that lasted the duration of the festival, and cost the Fringe director Jon Morgan his job.

Some ‘Friends of the Fringe’ yesterday complained that their advance tickets sales had been beset by problems, but these seem to have been fixed by the time the box office opened to the general public today.

Fringe-goers began queuing outside the High Street box office as early as 6.30am, while one customer alone spent £998.65 on tickets.

In a statement, the Fringe’s new chief executive, Kath Mainland said: ‘This has been a truly remarkable first day for the Fringe box office.

‘Our box office has been under unprecedented demand today, but thanks to the planning and preparation undertaken over the last 12 months, it has met the challenge and fulfilled the requests of fringe-goers.’

Martine Verheul, who was one of the first in line, picked up 190 tickets. She said: ‘We’ve spent a lot of time putting circles round boxes in the programme. We’ve actually had to make an excel spreadsheet out of it all. It takes some planning but we just can’t wait. We are massive fans.’

Charlotte Nichol, 22, joined the queue at 10am to buy 60 tickets for her mother who was at work.  She said: ‘This is the first day of my holidays and my mum forced me to come. She owes me a few favours now. I’ve got everything she wanted though, so I’m pleased.’

Around 14,000 tickets were sold to Friends of the Fringe members over the weekend, with organisers admitting the system had been running slowly at some points before today’s official opening.

The programme for the world\'s largest arts festival boasts a record 34,265 performances of 2,098 shows in 265 venues.

Published: 15 Jun 2009