Edinburgh's International Festival is selling nearly 25 per cent more tickets than at this stage last year, and is heading for a record year.
Director Fergus Linehan, whose debut festival opens on Friday with a free outdoor music and light show performance at the Usher Hall, said that two of the festival's main operas, The Magic Flute and The Marriage of Figaro, were "on the verge of selling out."
Linehan said he was cautiously pleased with how festival goers had reacted to his first festival programme, which for the first time features rock and pop music and a series of sessions at The Hub.
He said ticket sales were strong across all genres in the programme, from dance to theatre to music and opera.
"It is going phenomenally well," he said.
"We are 23% up on this time last year, and it is across the board, and not just one thing.
"Opera is way up, Usher Hall and Queens Hall is up, theatre is up - at the risk of being falsely modest, the Edinburgh International Film Festival was up this year, the jazz festival was up this year, there is a trajectory of Edinburgh's festivals being on the up and we are riding that wave to a degree.
"I think people have bought early, we did launch Antigone [starring Juliette Binoche] a million years ago, it feels like.
"You don't want to jinx it by talking about it too much, there is a long way to go, a full month, but yes, it's phenomenal."
Last year the festival took more than £3.15m in ticket sales income.
This year the EIF opens the same weekend as the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
Linehan added: "I think what is also helping is the extended runs - Lanark is a long run, Antigone, Robert Lepage, these are all extended runs and they are all helping because there is slightly bigger availability.
"Ticket sales is only one measure of success - you can do something that has a massive effect on the city and the festival and only plays in front of a small amount of people.
"Sometimes you want to spend huge amounts of money on something not seen by a huge amount of people. It is only one measure."
A trial run of the opening concert, the Harmonium Project, without music, will be staged tonight at the Usher Hall.
Linehan said: "I think it's going to look gorgeous, and the way the building has taken the light is really nice, the music is working with the animation so: so far, so good.
"I love an outdoor event, there is something about them that becomes this enormously public conversation: the thing about this one is that people may wonder what it is, but it draws people in, and it starts a conversation about the Usher Hall, about contemporary composition, about orchestras and choruses and hopefully it triggers all that but with a lightness of touch."
Linehan said that the reaction to the event would "enormously affect" what the festival plans for its opening event next year, which he has not yet programmed.
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