Record fringe as 2 million tickets are sold

The Edinburgh Fringe Festival has defied the recession and broken last year’s box office records by increasing ticket sales by 5 percent.

Festival organisers estimated that 1,955,913 tickets were sold during the three week festival which consisted of 40,254 performances across the city.

An estimated 21,148 performers took to the stage this year compared to 18,901 in 2009, the majority of them comedians.

One of the biggest and most popular venues was the Pleasance Courtyard which was ran by Edinburgh Universities Students' Association (EUSA). They took a total £1.1 million from the bars and catering outlets alone. An estimated 150,000 pints were sold from EUSA's bars across their three venues.

Fringe Society chief executive Kath Mainland said:“Audiences have come to know the Edinburgh Festival Fringe as the place to see every kind of art, from the most imaginative children's theatre
to topical and incisive comedy and theatre.”

In the last three years the number of performances at the festival has steadily increased but this year’s numbers rocketed to 40,254, an increase of 6000 performances since last year.

Ms Mainland said: “Edinburgh is without doubt the world’s leading festival destination and audiences continued to be inspired and enthralled by the many and varied events on offer.”

However, the first Edinburgh international book festival saw a dip in ticket sales as 3 percent fewer tickets were sold compared to last year's. The book festival's organisers blame the recession for causing the public to buy fewer tickets this year.

Despite this, Edinburgh book festival’s new director Nick Barley said he was "delighted" with the level of ticket sales this year and has announced the formation of a new "Word Alliance" network to join together other book festivals including China and Canada.

Nick Barley said: “This new cooperation project will be an important tool in connecting the world's literatures and will have a lasting effect on the relations of both our authors and audiences."