Of course, I don't know how much credit I can really take, but I am certainly having some of it.

In this space, towards the end of a hugely successful Celtic Connections music festival in Glasgow at the start of this year, I wrote that it was a great shame that the event was not celebrated more on the streets of the Dear Green Place, with banners advertising its existence replacing the generic ain't-Glasgow-great marketing campaign. Lo!, no sooner has artistic director Donald Shaw's much anticipated 2016 programme been unveiled and the box office opened to enthusiastic ticket-buyers anxious to hear Led Zeppelin's Robert Plant pay tribute to the late Bert Jansch as well as a myriad other attractions, than some very stylish Celtic Connections banners appeared fluttering from the city's street furniture to remind the citizenry and visitors how such an opportunity now presented itself. That someone in the City Chambers realised that the workforce deploying the Yuletide illuminations to encourage the seasonal shoppers could also be putting up some effective promotional material to entice music lovers in a Unesco City of Music should indeed occasion joyful carolling.

Something of the logic of this is also evident in Edinburgh International Festival director Fergus Linehan's refreshing approach to his programme and the audience, I now see. Like just about everyone else, I was taken aback when he convened the press and media for a briefing for his first festival before his predecessor's final one had so much as lit a farewell firework.We had become used to the programme for the premiere event in Scotland's cultural calendar being kept strictly - obsessively - under wraps until the big reveal of the whole brochure in March. Linehan radically decided to announce the starry arrival of French actress Juliet Binoche as Antigone as soon as it was confirmed, and put tickets on sale. He then revealed his classical concert line-up, although was persuaded that opening the box office early for those as well was a less admirable notion, as the faithful like to be able to see the whole picture before fixing their schedule. But the key difference from previous years was that the EIF had expanded its presence in the pages of the newspapers, on social media and in casual conversation beyond its regular fixed points in the year. It really is blindingly obvious that this is almost certain to be good for sales, and particularly for earlier booking which cements the place of the festival in more diaries, and of course, helps cash flow at Festival HQ with a longer spread of ticket income.

This week Linehan invited the Scottish media into his office to give us mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli as this year's Binoche. Wrestling Bellini's Norma from the vice-like grip of Maria Callas, whose hold over the role probably explains the rarity of more recent stagings, Bartoli and the directorial team of Patrice Caurier and Moshe Leiser created a radical version of the opera in Salzburg two years ago that will now be coming to Edinburgh for its only UK performances at the beginning of the 2016 Festival. I am excited about next summer and the clocks have only just gone back.

In case Bartoli doesn't wind your watch, however, Linehan also had a few teasing remarks about an opening event to follow the success of Harmonium this year, hinted at Shakespeare in foreign language versions and some American drama, and promised big Schoenberg from the BBC SSO as they bid farewell to local conductor Donald Runnicles as well as music from Glasgow's Mogwai and Lau's Martin Green. All of which is enough to mull over until his next pre-programme announcement. Get those banners up, Edinburgh.