Fringe was warned of box office debacle months in advance

Published on Tuesday 3 February 2009 21:43

A DAMNING report into the failure of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe's box office has revealed how warnings of potential chaos were being made behind the scenes months in advance.

Consultants have blamed a series of "flawed" decisions by Fringe officials and board members for the ticketing debacle, which brought the world's biggest arts festival to the brink of financial ruin.

The review of last year's box office failure, published today, reveals how a new computer system was still not ready to be tested with a month to go before sales opened.

Former Fringe director Jon Morgan, who resigned in the wake of last year's festival, was involved in the crucial decisions to go ahead with the new system and retain it, even after a host of problems emerged.

The consultants have condemned a lack of proper planning, poor project management, inadequate risk assessments and a breakdown in communications both within and outwith the Festival Fringe Society.

Their report reveals how the city council had to bring in its own IT experts to avoid the box office going into meltdown.

Among the key recommendations made by consultants Scott-Moncrieff are that the Fringe itself is dramatically overhauled and its directors take more responsibility for major issues, such as its box office operation.

The society was singled out for criticism in the report for "a lack of strategic direction and transparency in decision making".

The Fringe is already undergoing a huge shake-up, with the director's post scrapped in favour of hiring a chief executive.

Three other new senior posts have been created, while the Fringe has also agreed to use the box office system that effectively bailed out the Festival last summer. The Via system had already been put into use by the four biggest venues on the Fringe, allowing them to "cross-sell" tickets.

Tim Hawkins, the Fringe's acting general manager, said: "Many of the recommendations are already being acted upon as it was obvious in the autumn that we had to move quickly to get a new box office system in place and start the process of reviewing how the Fringe is run and bringing in new staff."

During three months of chaos last summer, sales had to be suspended several times, the Fringe missed a crucial deadline for sending out pre-booked tickets by post, some shows were wrongly said to be over-booked, and venues across the city had to bring in extra staff to sell tickets because the official box office was so unreliable.

The consultants' report was compiled from more than 6,000 pages of evidence and interviews with around 30 people.

It discloses that Pivotal, the software company brought in to run the new system, effectively had just seven weeks to prepare before ticket sales went live.

Councillor Steve Cardownie, the city council's festivals and events champion, said: "It's vitally important that lessons are learned by the Fringe from last year, as it was clearly a very damaging and expensive business for them to go through.

"I'm confident that work is ongoing to ensure that the Fringe retains its position as the world's No1 festival."

BACKGROUND

THE Fringe's box office woes were widely blamed for ticket sales falling almost 10 per cent last year, despite weeks of bad weather and the festival coinciding with the Beijing Olympics.

The event was hit with a host of extra costs including bringing in about 50 extra staff, meeting the cost of other venues bringing in staff, and integrating the Fringe box office with the one run by the biggest venues.