Edinburgh Festival ticket sales rise in economic downturn

Ticket sales for the Edinburgh Festival have taken off, despite a summer that has been wet and dreary, an economy that has been gloomy as well and competition from the Beijing Olympic Games.

The Fringe is reporting that the opening weekend is showing record sales, with numerous venues reporting an increased number of shows that are sold out.

“Within the first week we sold around 160,000 tickets,” said a spokeswoman for the Fringe, Miriam Attwood. “We won’t know until the end of the Fringe what the sales have been, but we would hope that it will be in line with or better than previous years.”

The official numbers for advance sales for the Edinburgh International Festival show a record of £2 million in advance tickets sold, with £1 in the first two days of public bookings. One possible reason for hotel bookings being low, even given the increased ticket sales, is that many festivalgoers from the region are staying at home and travelling to the events. Hotel occupancy throughout Scotland has dropped by 6.8 per cent and hotel income is down by 6.1 per cent.

“The main drop in numbers has been among the Americans,” the managing director of The Travel Company, Ken McNab, commented.

The Travel Company is based in Edinburgh. He added: “A number of factors, such as the weather and the other things going on over the summer, plus the weakness of the dollar, have been a problem for the tourist industry.”

www.eif.co.uk