Summerhall hails 40% Edinburgh Fringe ticket boost

ONE of the biggest venues at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe has reported a 40 per cent increase in ticket sales with a full week of shows still to run.

Anna-Helena McLean performs on the roof of Summerhall. Picture: Ian Georgeson

Summerhall, which has scooped a clutch of Scotsman Fringe First Awards this year, has only been operating on the festival for the last four years.

Created in Edinburgh University’s former vet school overlooking the Meadows, the year-round venue is hosting some 150 productions this month.

General manager Sam Gough said more than 56,000 tickets for shows at the venue – which stages theatre, cabaret, music and visual art events – had been sold by yesterday lunchtime.

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He added: “We are proud to host ongoing and exceptionally strong collaborative partnerships with Northern Stage, Paines Plough, The Place, companies from the UK and round the world with whom we work in collaboration and our own year-round Nothing Ever Happens Here music programme.”

Summerhall is the latest Fringe venue to report booming ticket sales this month, which has seen the Edinburgh International Festival share the same dates for the first time in 18 years.

The Pleasance and Assembly Festival have revealed sales are running at 35 and 30 per cent ahead of the 2014 Fringe, which saw more than two million tickets sold across all events for the first time, despite the first weekend clashing with the Commonwealth Games.