Exclusive: The credit crunch has yet to hit the Edinburgh International Festival, its director has stated, with more than £2m of tickets sold one week before it begins.

The credit crunch has yet to hit the Edinburgh International Festival, its director has stated, with more than £2m of tickets sold one week before it begins.

While the Edinburgh Festival Fringe has struggled with a new ticket system, with customers queuing to pick up their tickets from the Fringe office, the Edinburgh International Festival's director Jonathan Mills said that the event was on course to break even, and may even be poised to eat into some of its £196,000 deficit.

"It has not hit us at all this year. We are still selling very robustly and we are still selling on target, and that target is a larger target than last year. So far, so good," Mr Mills said.

"We took our first £1m in two days and we are over £2m, so we are on track to break even.

"But you need good content and good programmes to do that, whether it is an absolute boom time or not - if you don't have the product, people won't come back. So the credit crunch hasn't hit us yet. If it does next year ... the first response is to have a very strong programme and the second is to not lose one's nerve and abandon the integrity of the festival and flip to a bunch of commercial shows.

"It may also be valid to argue that in an economic slow-down people celebrate and go to festivals, rather than stay at home and mope around.

"None of us know how deep and far this supposed credit crunch will be."

Meanwhile Fringe staff said last night that although the ticket system has been hit by problems, customers can buy tickets online and at the venues.