By John Ritchie

The final piece of the Fringe booking fiasco jigsaw fell into place yesterday when Jon Morgan confirmed that the ticketing and booking problem had been an inheritance from the previous Fringe Administrator.

Five or six years ago the big three (now four) venues started discussing the common ticketing situation. They got together with the then Fringe Director Paul Gudgin to discuss a unified booking system using the same system and software throughout all of the venues, this, according to Anthony Alderson of the Pleasance, was agreed by all. They spoke to Tony Davie of the Wembly ticket system, and were then set to develop collectively a system that all could use with the same software. Nobody is sure when the Fringe office decided to use a different system or why.

The speculative allege that Paul Gudgin decided to take it down a separate road in order for the Fringe office to have more money, higher fees, or more control and power over ticket sales. This has yet to be proved; all we know is this is where the problem arose.

So it is not the present Fringe administration to blame for this fiasco; their actions have been fire fighting a damage limitation situation due to the legacy of the previous administration.

Most of the people involved believe that the only way to move forward is to scrap the present systems and start again, with one software system so everybody has a compatible situation. The two-tier ticket system which exists at this time is costing more than twice as much as it should and more: instead of costing fifteen pence, it is costing up to fifty to sixty pence per ticket.

So next year, instead of the costs being one million pounds, the cost will be in excess of two million pounds. This money could be saved by creating a central marketing and ticketing office for all the Festivals and venues, not just the Fringe, which could be self-financing.

In fact, the whole marketing centre idea could be taken on from there by adding a centralised international press centre for all the festivals with it own satellite Edinburgh Festival television channel for the month of the summer festivals, only then would we be able to promote our city and its festivals properly on the international stage.

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