No sell-outs for a host of top name stars at Edinburgh book festival

By BRIAN FERGUSON
Published on 16/08/2012 02:32

A HOST of big-name authors and celebrities have yet to sell out appearances at the capital’s flagship literary celebration.

James Kelman, Irvine Welsh, Denise Mina, Ruth Rendell, Christopher Brookmyre and 
Val McDermid are among the high-profile writers who are still to shift tickets.

The Book Festival’s box office system went into meltdown and fans queued for hours to snap up tickets when they went on sale in June. However, many events have failed to sell out at the Festival, which suffered a slump in visitors last year.

Michael Palin, Simon Callow, Ian McEwan, Pat Barker, Zadie Smith, Ian Rankin and Alexander McCall Smith have been among the hottest tickets at the Book Festival this year.

But other shows which are still available are those featuring comedian Russell Kane, comic book writer Grant Morrison, Chic frontman Nile Rodgers, Blur’s bass player Alex James and poet Liz Lochhead.