The Fringe Society board of directors admitted "serious errors" had been made and expressed its "deep regret" over the faulty box office system at its annual general meeting yesterday, but declined to offer an official apology to those affected.
The board, which runs the festival, announced that alongside an independent inquiry into why its box office system malfunctioned, it will also conduct a root-and-branch review of its own role within the fringe.
At a packed meeting the board held firm in the face of calls for its 15 members to stand down. It shrugged off claims that the independent review would be a "whitewash"; predictions from IT specialists that it may already be too late to fix the box office for next year; and suggestions that the ticketing malfunction has "brought the fringe to the brink of disaster".
The recent box office fiasco, which left thousands of people without tickets and venue managers with shows oversold or incorrectly advertised as sold out, meant the AGM was unusually heated.
"This is the most animated one I've been to," said Tommy Sheppard, director of the Stand comedy club who was elected onto the board during the meeting. "Usually they are soporific affairs."
At the outset the chair of the board of directors, Baroness Elizabeth Smith, announced the key parts of the proposed inquiry.
The Scottish government, City of Edinburgh Council, Scottish Enterprise and the Scottish Arts Council will be invited to produce a report on the procurement, installation, operation and subsequent collapse of the fringe box office this year. The report is expected in November.
The new system, Liquid Box Office, was provided by Glasgow-based Pivotal Integration. It launched on June 9 but crashed almost immediately. Eventually the Red61 system, used by the Assembly Rooms, Underbelly, Pleasance and Gilded Balloon was brought in, but not before thousands of people failed to receive their tickets by post.
An independent IT company will also investigate what the best options for a box office system are for next year's festival, and is due to deliver its recommendations by the end of October.
Baroness Smith also announced a review of the Fringe Society "in the wider context of the fringe as a whole".
Despite these announcements many of the 200 people in the audience were unimpressed with the board's handling of the situation.
William Burdett-Coutts, who runs the Assembly Rooms, said: "Does the board recognise and accept that it has taken the fringe to the brink of disaster? That's what you have to accept as a group of people. If we hadn't brought the Red61 system in the day we all went live, the entire mix of all of us would be commercially dead by now.
"The board needs to recognise that and does need to say sorry."
Tomek Borkowy, director of Universal Arts, went further and called for the resignation of the entire board.
"They are making a dog's dinner of this," he said. "The board of directors didn't lead in the right way. The board should do the honourable thing and step down and let's start again from the beginning."
Mike Duffy, a theatre director, claimed performers and venue managers currently in Edinburgh had no faith in these key fringe institutions.
"The board and the Fringe Society have lost the confidence of most of the fringe by their inability to move forward," he said.
"My perception is you haven't taken it seriously enough. This isn't a time for laughing. We are very angry."
One member of the Fringe Society suggested that amid all the talk about public inquiries, "the board should go and see the play Deepcut and consider if that is how you want your inquiry to go".
The board remained robust in the face of the criticism.
Sheppard called Burdett-Coutt's request for an apology as "play acting", but one member of the board, performer Pip Utton, said he was sorry on a personal level.
"I would like to apologise to not just venue managers, but performers and staff," he said.
"I feel like I need to say sorry, because we made what we felt was the right decision, but it has gone wrong. I may have to divorce myself from the board to do that, but this is my only opportunity to do this to 200 of you."
Other board members were more cautious.
"Listening is what is important now," said Simon Fanshawe, the writer and broadcaster. "We could all stand up and say We're really sorry you are standing in the rain' or We're sorry your show was oversold'. Of course we regret the situation, but I don't think our behaviour says anything other than that."
Sheppard admitted that the Fringe Society needed to change to be more representative of the entire festival. He pointed out that the society has a membership of just 76 for a festival that millions participate in.
"I'm glad this review is being launched, not just about the box office, but a root-and-branch examination of the Fringe Society, what it is for and where it should go," he said.
"Since I started at the fringe 13 years ago the fringe has doubled in size, and yet the society has been stuck in the 1950s."
After the AGM Jon Morgan, the fringe director, refused to rule out the possibility that venues would be financially compensated for any losses caused by the box office failure.
"We will assess everything on a case by case basis," he said. "There is no way to assess it properly until we get to the end of the festival. It is going to be hard to quantify what the impact has been, I mean, even the Tattoo is down this year."
