Edinburgh's festive Christmas events saw a more than 40% rise in tickets sales.

More than 541,000 tickets were sold for shows and attractions as part of the Edinburgh's Christmas, a six week festival, its organisers have revealed.

The 541,151 tickets sold represented a 40.17% rise on ticket buyers since 2013/14.

Around 3.6m people visited the Edinburgh Christmas sites, increasing footfall by 37.6% on 2013.

Footfall during the Edinburgh's Christmas period was up in the city centre by 5.1% and on Prince's Street by 8.6%, organisers said, above the UK national average, which is expected to be down by 1%.

The more than 3.6m people visiting the two major sites, Princes Street Gardens and St Andrew Square, during the run of the Christmas festival was an increase of 37.6% on the 2013 festival, which had a footfall of 2,629,416.

Charlie Wood of the Underbelly Fringe festival venue, and producer of Edinburgh's Christmas, said: "We are obviously thrilled at the figures - over half a million people bought tickets for shows and attractions at Edinburgh's Christmas and over 1 in 10 people eligible for the 'EH' postcode discount took up the offer.

"It demonstrates the scale and attraction of the festival.

"We set out to make Edinburgh's Christmas one of the world's best places to be at Christmas time and these figures show that we're on our way to achieving that."]

He added: "As ever, we will be working in the next few months to see what worked well, what didn't work so well, and how we can improve the festival to make sure that next year's is an even greater success for the people of the city and visitors to the city to look forward to and enjoy.

"In particular, we want to work with other areas of Edinburgh to involve them in Edinburgh's Christmas and extend the benefits to businesses and residents in those areas."

Councillor Steve Cardownie, Edinburgh's Festivals and Events Champion, said: "Our winter festivals are the envy of the world and rightly so.

"This has been another record-breaking year, and the huge boost to footfall is good news for city centre businesses and the local economy."

Essential Edinburgh, the company which runs the city centre Business Improvement District, said figures show footfall figures up the Edinburgh Christmas period by 8.6% on last year in Princes Street, and by 15.6% at St Andrew Square