Ticket sales boost for venues as Fringe acts cross new frontiers

The Assembly Rooms will be running the first major venue in Princes Street Gardens for more than five years this month after striking a lucrative deal with the city council to take over a site at the Ross Bandstand.

It is one of several major changes in the landscape of this year's festival.

The new Belgian "mirror tent" venue has already been drawing crowds for events for at the jazz festival in advance of the majority of venues opening for business for previews today.

Bosses at the Underbelly venues have also reported ticket sales running way ahead of last year after adding their own major new venue - Edinburgh University's McEwan Hall - and releasing thousands of tickets several months earlier than usual.

One stand-up, John Bishop, is believed to have already sold more than 20,000 tickets for his run in the venue.

A third promoter, Pleasance, said its ticket sales were 1.5 per cent ahead of last year, despite having two fewer venues this year, and opening a brand new one away from its established home in the south side of the city centre.

The Fringe is also expected to be boosted this year by the return of the Famous Spiegeltent to George Square Gardens after its Australian-based promoters took a break to refurbish the celebrated venue.

William Burdett-Coutts, artistic director at Assembly, said: "It's a bit of a shot in the dark taking on Princes Street Gardens, and there is no doubt it is a risk, but we wouldn't be doing it if we didn't think it was going to work.

"It's definitely helped with our ticket sales this year, which are running around a third ahead of where they were this time last year.

"We're just reached the point where we've sold 100,000 tickets before the Fringe has even started for the first time and it's worth pointing out that's more than the final number we sold at the Assembly Rooms in 1999."

Anthony Alderson, artistic director at the Pleasance, which is opening a new venue at West End nightspot Ghillie Dhu, said: "Any new venue is going to take a couple of years to settle in, but some of our shows there are selling well, and we think there is going to be a real audience focus on cabaret this year, which is what we're mainly doing at Ghillie Dhu."

Charlie Wood, director at Underbelly, which started selling shows at the 1,000-capacity McEwan Hall at the beginning of March, said: "Things are going very well compared to last year.

"Obviously the new venue has made a difference for us, but although some shows are selling very strongly, it's still very early days."

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