Fringe-goers have been facing delays and long waits to buy tickets for Fringe shows. However, fears that the box office fiasco of last year might be repeated have been allayed with the news that the Fringe Office surpassed all previous box office records after its first day of ticket sales to the general public yesterday, selling tickets in excess of £275,000.

The sheer breadth of Fringe Music on offer does take your breath away, and the extensive classical portion should satisfy most tastes.

Handel's "Alexander's Feast" at the Canongate Kirk on 11 August should be really special.  You could also try the Bach or Beethoven "for Breakfast" events at the Royal Overseas League - tea/coffee and pastries are even included.

David Byrne, the Stranglers, and The Streets, are among acts appearing at this year's The Edge Festival, the contemporary music festival within the Fringe Festival. Formerly known as T on the Fringe, the music fest marks its tenth anniversary this year.

The 2009 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, which launched earlier today at the EICC, will be the biggest yet with 2098 shows in 265 venues over the course of 24 days in August.

The cover of this year's Fringe programme is a glowing, purple egg. For Kath Mainland, who took the reins as Chief Executive of the Fringe Society only three weeks ago, "the egg symbolises anticipation of the Fringe... you use your imagination to see what's inside."

A series of measures designed to minimise the impact of the extensive tram works on Princes Street on this year's Edinburgh Festival has been announced by the Edinburgh Tram Project

Edinburgh's Festival Fringe is to be provided with a short term financial support package of £250,000 from a group of key funders to tackle cash-flow problems.

The Fringe Director Jon Morgan has announced his resignation.

Jon Morgan who has only been the Fringe Director for just over a year, has today resigned over the ten percent drop in ticket sales compounded by the computer booking fiasco.

Lynn Ruth Miller, the septuagenarian, stripping granny from San Francisco, says that a member of the audience found her better digs when she heard that she was staying in a remote Edinburgh flat without heating.

The 62nd Edinburgh Festival Fringe, ending today, appears to have survived the wettest August on record and a ticketing fiasco which saw it suspending counter and telephone ticket sales even as preview shows were about to start.

I suppose the musical equivalent of "don't judge a book by its cover" could be "don't choose a band just for their name" - but thankfully, I don't subscribe to that sort of thinking. So when I came across the listing for Shooglenifty in the Fringe programme, I just thought, what a great name for a band, and signed up on the spot. And having deliberately done no more research than read the information in the programme, off I went to the Speigel Tent armed with no knowledge or preconceptions. And what a result.

One of the great things about the Fringe is the variety of venues you can find yourself in to watch a show. On a great night, with the right performance, even the most unlikely space ceases to matter once you get caught up in the moment. On a very wet August evening, in a pretty non-descript - but very warm - room up Surgeons Hall, Dana Gillespie pretty much managed to make me forget where I was, and transported the audience to a prohibition-era New Orleans bordello. If that seems a little unlikely, let me explain ...

"Everything you have is never enough" claimed Andrew Lawrence, in yet another venue where you could cook meat. But, his interesting point, and indeed his whole show, seemed to be lost in a flurry of bad accents, lack of laughs and his incessant need to shout down the microphone.

The Intelligent Finance Comedy Awards, the UK's premier comedy awards, are now in their 28th year. The two awards are given for the most outstanding up-and-coming, funny, original comedy show

Fancy a murder mystery weekend but not got the time? Then this production of Cluedo will give you the experience in 90 mins.

You need to know and probably love musicals to get the most out of this show. Anyone who dismisses musicals as a trivial art form would have their prejudices confirmed, but unless they had sat through a variety of shows then a lot of subtleties and gags would be lost.

Full steam ahead is the message for The Danish New Works Development Center after seeing one of only two performances on the Fringe.

In the current climate of economic recession and general "cutting back" on outings this summer, numbers attending performances in this year's Fringe have dropped considerably. With this in mind, it is perhaps necessary to take more consideration than usual in choosing what to recommend to the few who journey out to the festival. One piece which is really essential to see is Ryan JW Smiths New World Order.

Edinburgh's ever-popular Todd Gordon presented his fans with another new ‘first' by marrying his voice to a big band sound. His Sinatra-Basie Sessions Revisited opened up a new dimension, allowing him to build on his well-known Sinatra sessions by singing for the first time with a big band.

I had a laugh even on the way in to see Sir Barrington Ganch the other day.

As its title suggests, this new play by Bill Dunlop has more than just a soupcon of the French about it. Set squarely amid the chaos of Paris during the Revolution, it filters events through the thoughts and experiences of three lowly seamstresses: Bleu, Blanc and Rouge. In so doing, it gives us a glimpse into what it might be like to live in a place and time where people gave up their lives for a dream, some might say a fantasy, of freedom.