Fringe run goes in record 43mins

Daniel Kitson could have set an Edinburgh Fringe record – by selling out his show in just 43 minutes.

At the peak of yesterday’s sales frenzy, more than one ticket every second was being sold for Where Once Was Wonder, hist first stand-up show at the festival in three years.

A small allocation of tickets for Where Once Was Wonder quickly sold out a month ago on the Edinburgh Fringe website.

But the bulk of the 1,920 tickets for his 16-night run went on sale at 1pm yesterday through The Stand comedy club’s site, without any telephone sales. Between 1.04pm and 1.13pm alone, 674 tickets were purchased.

The Fringe press office doesn’t monitor the speed of ticket sales but it seems likely that Kitson’s is the fastest selling Fringe show ever. The Stand confirmed that it was the fastest they have experienced.

Owner Tommy Sheppard said: ‘It’s not the largest venue in the world and we’ve reduced it to 120 seats on Daniel’s request. But we’ve had people pestering us for months, asking when we would put them on sale. We could have sold them all ten times over.

‘It’s really refreshing to see an act that’s hardly been on television and who has no wish to be on again, to have cultivated such a dedicated fanbase. All from just being an excellent stand-up, and without using the mass media.’

Chortle’s review of Where Once was Wonder from the Melbourne Festival in Aprilcan be found here.

Kitson is also performing a theatre show at the Traverse during the Fringe, with the unwieldy name As of 1.52pm GMT on Friday April 27th 2012, This Show Has No Title. At the time of writing, tickets are available for all but the first day.

Published: 8 Jun 2012