The Edinburgh Festival Fringe was hit by computer trouble last night as its website sales operation, due to open yesterday, was closed by technological problems.

The Edinburgh Festival Fringe was hit by computer trouble last night as its website sales operation, due to open yesterday, was closed by technological problems.

A new box office system was blamed for the delays and the Fringe said it was "working hard" to fix the problems. Last year, 1.7 million tickets were sold for the Fringe, the second consecutive year that the world's biggest arts festival had crossed the 1.5 million mark.

Its 2008 programme was launched last week.

A statement released by the Fringe last night said: "There has been a delay in opening the Fringe box office for website sales today. We are attempting to resolve the problem as soon as possible.

"We are open for telephone and counter sales at the publicised times. Unfortunately we are experiencing delays. Every year we see a queue on the High Street during the first day of sales.

"We have extended the opening hours to serve all those people who are waiting in the queue today. For any customers who could not wait we have taken contact telephone numbers so we can process their bookings."

The statement added: "This year the Fringe has moved to a new box office system as the suppliers of the previous system could no longer meet the challenges of the Fringe.

"We are confident we have chosen the best system for long term. However, implementing the system has presented some short-term challenges. In the meantime, we are working hard to fix these problems."