Edinburgh Festival Fringe: More than 1m tickets sold after event’s first week

Programme is second biggest in event’s history

Dancers from the Havana Street Party show at the Fringe outside their venue at the McEwan Hall. Picture Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

More than a million tickets have been sold after the first week of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, its organisers have revealed.

The Fringe Society, which oversees the world’s biggest arts festivals, says “optimism” is surounding this year’s event as it enters its second weekend.

Tickets sales are believed to be running well ahead of last year, which ended up attracting an overall audience of 2.2 million, the sixth highest in the history of the event, but well below the 2019 record of more than three million.

The return of the official Fringe app, which was controversially absent from last year's event, is understood to have helped boost sales this year, with more than 55,000 downloads recorded so far.

However the Fringe Society urged audiences to try to see as much as work as possible over the next two weeks as they highlighted the fact that the average ticket price for a show is just £12.

The one million ticket sales landmark has been reached despite warnings that the rising cost of accommodation had become the biggest risk to the Fringe’s future.

A drop in ticket sales last year of nearly 27 per cent compared to record-breaking 2019 season prompted claims that artists and audiences were being “priced out of town,” and that the Fringe's very existence was in “very real danger.” Around 87 per cent of artists polled after last year’s event felt that the affordability of accomodation and living costs would be a barrier to their future participation.

However this year’s Fringe line-up is the second highest in the event’s history.

Around 3730 shows have gone on sale – compared to 3841 in 2019 - after a late flurry of more than 700 registrations and 38 new venues since the printed programme was launched in June.

An official announcement from the Fringe Society said: “As the Edinburgh Festival Fringe enters its second weekend, audiences are embracing the call to fill yer boots’ across a diverse and energetic Fringe programme.

“With over a million tickets issued so far and thousands of people watching street performances and free shows; the 2023 Fringe is as relevant, exciting, accessible and diverse as ever.

“While this key moment is an important milestone, the festival, and indeed the wider cultural sector, have much to do in their continued recovery from the pandemic.”As an open-access festival it is the artists themselves who are at the heart of the Fringe, taking the risk to bring work to Edinburgh every August.

"As such, we encourage everyone visiting the festival this August to continue to see work and explore as much as possible for the next two weeks.”

Shona McCarthy, chief executive of the Fringe Society, said: “Last autumn, when we reviewed the challenges facing the 2023 Fringe, we entered this year with uncertainty about what this summer would look like.

“Despite the current cost of living crisis, audiences have jumped straight into the programme and are exploring every genre.

"With the average ticket price less than £12, it is the artists and venues who have worked tirelessly to ensure the Fringe is as accessible as possible. I encourage you to continue to support this important event.”

Pleasance artistic director Anthony Alderson said: “There’s a palpable energy across the city and we can feel the true excitement and buzz of the Fringe. It’s amazing walking into our venues and seeing the sold out board full, audiences queuing and people chatting about what they’ve seen. This is the spirit of the Fringe and I’m delighted that it’s back.”