Letter: Fringe success

I REFER to your article of 3 September. The 2010 Fringe was, by any standard, an incredibly successful event. The media's obsession with statistics as a means of measuring success means that audiences, participants and the public are used to seeing figures to support the close of an event.

These figures have to take into account audience numbers for more than 2,453 shows taking place across 259 venues over three weeks.

A large number of Fringe events are free and unticketed and these events are an integral part of the festival landscape. Journalists use our figures to create a picture of average audience attendance for their reference, and if no account is taken of the shows that have no ticketing, but whose performances are included in the calculation then the picture that creates is not accurate.

We have a responsibility to the participants and audiences of those shows to acknowledge them as part of the Fringe makeup. The success of the Festival Fringe is not gauged by statistics alone.

Audiences, venues, performers and the city of Edinburgh have enjoyed many and varied events this summer, from award-winning children's theatre through to world-class comedy and inspirational and thought-provoking theatre.

In hindsight, our use of the word "sold" was not best, but let's not forget that the picture painted in Brian Ferguson's article, of more than 1.8 million tickets sold, an increase of 5 per cent on 2009, and hundreds of thousands of attendees at free events, is one of success, and something that we should all be proud of.

Kath M Mainland

Festival Fringe Society

High Street

Edinburgh