By most accounts, a festival which crams 31,320 performances of 2,088 shows into 247 venues over the space of three weeks ought to be considered a success. But box-office problems which cost the Fringe more than £100,000 may have impacted the internationally-renowned festival—worth £70 million to the Scottish economy—in ways which may not be fully felt for a number of years, according to a report produced by Edinburgh City Council this week.

The report outlines the debacle which left thousands of punters without tickets, or holding tickets for shows which had been oversold. Problems began with the implementation of a new ticketing system, Liquid Box Office (LBO) on 9 June which almost immediately developed what the report terms “technical glitches”. In the absence of a contingency plan, a backup system was hastily developed to keep sales going, but this was unable to print tickets. In light of this, the Fringe’s old system, Pivotal Integration Ltd. was hauled back into service but was beset by similar inadequacies.

The saga ended when the booking system from the so-called “big four” venues (Assembly, Pleasance, Gilded Balloon & Underbelly) was hurried in at the last minute to run alongside Fringe systems and clear the backlog before the festival began. Nonetheless, thousands of pre-booked tickets had not yet been issued as curtains went up across the city.

According to the Council report, “it is too early to say what impact these problems might have on the reputation of the Fringe.” However, the Scottish Government, the Scottish Arts Council, Scottish Enterprise Edinburgh and Lothian and the Council have pledged their assistance in smoothing over this year’s difficulties.

“Nominations of people with experience in procurement, IT, arts and charity governance have been sought,” in order to aid investigation into the problems and the implementation of a new system.

Head of the Assembly Rooms, William Burdett-Coutts, spoke of his frustration at a Fringe board meeting called last week to dissect the problems: “does the [Fringe Society] board recognise and accept that it has taken the Fringe to the brink of disaster?” he lamented. “If we hadn't brought the Red61 system in the day we all went live, the entire mix of all of us would be commercially dead by now.”

Indeed, the 2008 Fringe saw a drop in audience figures for the first time in eight years. Overall, Fringe ticket sales this year dropped ten per cent, from 1.7 million in 2007 to 1.5 million tickets this summer. Fringe director Jon Morgan had initially posited bad weather, the credit crunch and competition from the Olympics as additional causes for the downturn, pointing out also that the number of free, non-ticketed shows had increased from 304 to 350 since last year. A final report on attendances is expected later this month.

However, Morgan has since announced his decision to step down from the position of Fringe director – a position he had held for only 15 months. While his job had been looking increasingly untenable, few expected to see his resignation before the completion of the festival post-mortem.

Two enquiries into the debacle, as well as the hunt for a new director are to begin this month – internal whisperings place director of The Stand comedy club, Tommy Sheppard high on the list to succeed Morgan. But whoever the board choose, they can be pretty sure that delivering a workable booking system is likely to appear high on the job description this coming year.