Leader: Fringing on managerial failure

Published on Sunday 17 August 2008 20:18

APART from the rain, this has not been a happy year for the Festival Fringe. Arguably the world's biggest artistic event, the Fringe has been bedevilled by problems with its new box-office computer system. This left thousands of customers without tickets while shows were oversold, or even advertised as sold out when they weren't. Overall, the Fringe can still claim to have been a success, but the computer glitch has caused misery for many theatre goers and might well have hurt sales.

Perhaps understandably, the Fringe organisers were loath initially to admit the scale of their computer problems – sometimes implying the press were exaggerating the difficulties. However, the Fringe Society, at its board AGM on Saturday, admitted to "serious errors" regarding the box office system. The Fringe management also agreed to take part in an independent inquiry into the computer meltdown and the board may take legal action against the suppliers of the system.

This much is progress. However, the Fringe director, Jon Morgan, has resisted calls for his resignation while the board pointedly refused to offer an apology for the disaster. The Fringe is one of Edinburgh's cultural crown jewels. But the shine was taken off this year's event by the ticketing problems. This was not an act of God but a managerial failure. Pretending otherwise is bad for box office.