£100 Connery tickets on eBay enrage book fest organisers

Published on Wednesday 25 June 2008 10:29

TICKETS for the Edinburgh International Book Festival have appeared on internet auction site eBay for the first time, as touts cash in on a scheduled appear-ance by Sir Sean Connery.

Sir Sean will take the stage along with acclaimed Scottish filmmaker and co-author Murray Grigor to launch his long-awaited memoirs entitled Being a Scot.

Organisers said they were upset to see the tickets for the August 25 event appear online with an asking price of up to 100.

Originally price at just 9, the tickets had sold out in just under an hour, making it the fastest selling event in book festival history.

The news came as the Book Festival revealed it had seen record ticket sales in its first weekend, with a 24 per cent increase in sales over last year and more than 16 per cent of the programme already sold-out.

The Book Festival website received 300,000 hits in the first hour of ticket sales, and internet sales over the first weekend have risen by 63 per cent on last year.

Frances Sutton, festival press manager, said: "We are extremely disappointed that festival tickets have appeared on eBay. Our events are one-off and take place in relatively intimate venues, so demand for some events is always going to be high.

"We have built up a loyal and committed audience over the years, who are prepared to queue on the first morning of ticket sales to get their chosen events. They have always been extremely reluctant to part with these tickets. It is a shame that one individual has decided to make a quick profit while so many genuine book festival fans were disappointed."

While sales of high-profile events featuring Sir Sean Connery, Margaret Atwood, Alex Salmond and Jonathan Dimbleby were expected, festival staff were delighted to see the clamour for tickets extended to lesser-known authors such as Bernardo Atxaga from Spain's Basque region, and home-grown talent like Andrew Crumey and Andrew Greig.

Meanwhile, the Edinburgh International Film Festival has said ticket sales after the first weekend are at the same point as last year. This is the first time the festival has been held in June, separate from the other August festivals, and the news that tickets sales are matching previous years has been welcomed.

Managing director Ginnie Atkinson said: "The move to July means this festival is almost a new event. At this point, following the first weekend, we are at the same point as we were last year in terms of sales, so we are very pleased."

The Fringe has also reported a busy week of sales, since its troubled box office reopened on June 17. More than 65,000 tickets have been sold to date, after technical difficulties with a new box-office system. The Fringe engaged the Edinburgh-based web-design company Kraya to implement an alternative web-based booking system.