Sales of tickets for Festival 'red hot'

TICKET sales on the first day of bookings for the 2010 Edinburgh International Festival were "red hot" yesterday and were expected to at least match the £270,000 taken in the opening 24 hours last year, according to officials.

Festival-goers queued from 5am to snap up tickets for the most popular performances, including the closing concert, which sold out in hours.

Other sought-after shows included Opera de Lyon's production of Porgy And Bess, and dance by Grupo Corpo from Brazil.

More than 50 people had joined the queue by the time the box office opened at The Hub, near the top of Edinburgh's Royal Mile, at 9.30am. Some 200 ticket-buyers had to wait up to two hours to secure their reservations for events during the 13 August-5 September Festival, with queues clearing by mid-afternoon.

However, online bookings increased their dominance this year, accounting for 74 per cent of first-day sales.

Festival chiefs said they were delighted by the takings, which are 8 per cent up overall on last year, taking into account priority booking over the last ten days by Friends of the Festival.

They said yesterday's frenetic sales had matched the vibrancy of the Festival's Latin American and New World themes.

Marketing director Jackie Westbrook said: "It's been a fantastic day. The colours of the brochure and contents of the Festival are hot, hot, hot and today was red hot at the box office."

She said first-day sales had reached 250,000 by the end of counter booking last night, but they should equal or exceed last year's 270,000 total by taking in online bookings up to midnight.

The 2009 Festival notched up 2.5m in all.

Westbrook said four or five events had sold out already, including the final concert at the Usher Hall on 4 September, featuring Mahler's Eighth Symphony.