Fringe spent £100,000 trying to fix ticket chaos

THE Edinburgh Festival Fringe spent more than £100,000 trying to resolve its box office problems this year, The Scotsman has learned.

The festival is facing a financial headache after running up a "hefty sum" trying to rectify technical difficulties.

A new report for the city council has laid bare the Fringe's problems and warned it may be some time before the full impact of the debacle is known.

Costs include paying a software company for a temporary system after initial problems, bringing in about 50 extra staff, meeting the cost of other venues bringing in staff, and integrating the Fringe box office with one run by the "big four" venues.

The cost to the Fringe is about a tenth of its reserves, which includes assets such as the box office on the High Street and the performers' centre on Fishmarket Close.

Council officials say the Fringe will face a hefty bill for the forthcoming inquiry into the box office failures, as the festival has agreed to meet the costs of the exercise, which will involve external consultants.

The report describes how the Fringe box office faced "a range of technical glitches" as soon as it opened for business in June.

A back-up system set up to keep ticket sales running was put in place, but most major venues decided to divert all sales through a separate system.

The report states the Fringe used up a "significant" amount of resources establishing alternative box office systems with venues, paying for the extra staff and drawing up extensive contingency plans if its box office continued to malfunction.

Box office woes were blamed for a slump of almost 10 per cent in ticket sales this year. Hours after the initial figures were revealed, Fringe director Jon Morgan said he was quitting. More detailed figures are expected to be unveiled later this month.

Jim Inch, the council's director of corporate services, said:

"The council has been advised that ticket sales may be marginally down on the previous year's figures, but a final report on actual attendances and tickets sold will be published (this month]."

A spokesman for the Fringe said it was thought to have already spent about 10 per cent of the 980,000 reserves it held at the start of the new financial year in April. It is not yet known how much the Fringe will have to pay for the box office review.

The spokesman added: "It's

worth bearing in mind that we will not be paying anything like the 300,000 that was budgeted for the new box office system over the next three years."

William Burdett-Coutts, director of Assembly, said: "I do hope that there will not be too much of an impact on the Fringe if it has had to eat into its reserves significantly.

"However, serious questions have to be asked."