Ticket sales are up at the Festival - but will that secure its future?

Meanwhile the capital’s arts administrators and bean counters try to make sense of what has happened. By which I mean they gather data on attendances and ticket sales in preparation for annual reports, pitches to politicians for more funding and, ahead of all that, the inevitable press announcements.

So we learn this week that the Edinburgh International Book Festival saw footfall through the site at the Edinburgh Futures Institute increase by 60% on last year. On one weekend there were over 25,000 visitors to the Courtyard space and 161,889 in total. They weren’t all just sitting in the sunshine supping flat whites either: ticket sales were also up, by 11% on 2024.

Elsewhere the Edinburgh Art Festival has reported record numbers of attendees for its largest and most ambitious programme yet, while the Edinburgh International Film Festival held 194 screenings (of which 18 were world premieres) and drew more than 16,500 punters to the public events – well up on last year, when there were 12,000 admissions across 187 screenings. Importantly for a festival still finding its feet after a bruising few years, there were also 300 industry delegates in the form of film-makers, producers and distributors, and the festival helped nurture innovative schemes such as the Sean Connery Talent Lab for young film-makers.

Fringe Society Chief Executive Tony Lankester said the event 'remains the single best platform in the world for artists to showcase their work' (Image: Gordon Terris) Turning to the Edinburgh International Festival (EIF), 111,000 people attended shows in its programme, half of which were sell-outs. Of that number, a cool 22,000 watched Brian Cox in Make It Happen at the Royal Lyceum Theatre, this year’s EIF heavy hitter. If Scottish theatre could achieve that kind of traction throughout the year, it would be some boon. Overall the festival says it sold 88% of the available tickets, a fact which contributed to its highest bums-on-seats average in a decade. That’s not a technical term, but it matters.

Finally to the Edinburgh Fringe Society, which runs the Fringe. Across 300 venues and 53,942 performances, Fringe punters bought a cool 2,604,404 tickets. Over 60 countries were represented in the programme and there were international showcases for a number of them, including Denmark, Australia, South Korea and Canada. Proof, says Fringe Society Chief Executive Tony Lankester, that the event “remains the single best platform in the world for artists to showcase their work … a critical step in their professional journey.”

What’s the overall pattern here, though? Is the 11% rise in book festival tickets accounted for by more events being held in the 1100 capacity McEwan Hall, a venue with saleable space aplenty but perhaps lacking the intimacy which was once part of the draw when the book festival was held in Charlotte Square’s tented village? Is 16,500 cinemagoers a lot and how does it compare with the typical throughput of a multiplex?

Looking at the Fringe ticket sales, meanwhile, the picture is of an event which has matched last year’s numbers even in the teeth of concerns about the effect of the Oasis concerts and the ongoing issues around the cost of accommodation. But you could equally say ticket sales have flat-lined. Is that worrying for an event which has incremental increases baked into its DNA? It may be a cliché, but you will still hear people in the capital say of the Fringe: “It just gets bigger and noisier ever year.” Growth is expected.

The other festivals have found things to crow about in public. But the in-house de-briefs will throw up the real issues and there’s no hiding the fact that public money is tight and increasingly private money is (or is perceived as being) tainted by association with, say, the fossil fuel industry (hello Baillie Gifford). These things can cause reputational as well as systemic damage.

Meanwhile the truculent clan chiefs running the big Fringe venues or the branded mini-festivals within the Fringe have their own axes to grind, just as others warn about everything from the threats to free speech to the difficulties women still have making their way in stand-up. They say everyone’s a critic. But when there are tickets to sell and attention to grab, everyone’s a complainant too.

Edinburgh has struggled to divine the real meaning and importance of its festivals for as long as they have existed, and certainly as long as I have been covering them as a journalist. It’s a process not helped by the rose-tinted spectacles through which many choose to view the past and the fact that nobody can ever agree on the future direction of travel. Meanwhile every other capital city in the world seeks to boost its cultural offering, in part by adapting what it sees as the Edinburgh template.

Are the competitors catching up – the muscular Adelaide Festival, for instance – or is Edinburgh too far in front to be over-taken? Depends who you ask. And when. And how much they have in their organisational piggy bank at the time.

All we can safely say for sure is this: it’s only 340 sleeps until the 2026 Edinburgh Festival.

Read more

• Taking stock of the Fringe
• Fringe tickets sales withstand Oasis effect
• Comedy boss in equality warning

Testimony under fire

Glasgow-based company Cosmic Cat Films is to give a cinema release to From Ground Zero, an anthology film featuring shorts by 22 Gaza-based film-makers made during the Israeli assault on the densely-populated area.

Produced by veteran Palestinian director Rashid Masharawi, no stranger to the Cannes Film Festival where his work has featured regularly since the mid-1990s, it is executive produced by Oscar-winning US documentary maker Michael Moore. It’s also Palestine’s official entry for the 2025 Academy Awards.

The UK theatrical release is on September 12 and to date there are confirmed Scottish screenings at the Glasgow Film Theatre and, in Edinburgh, at the Cameo and Filmhouse cinemas.

And finally

The last set of Edinburgh Festival reviews are in. Theatre critic Neil Cooper was in the audience for two more EIF shows – Faustus In Africa, at the Royal Lyceum, and As You Like It A Radical Retelling at the Churchill Theatre – and served up five star reviews for each.

Elsewhere music critic Keith Bruce was at The Hub to take in the virtuoso players of the Aga Khan Master Musicians at the Hub, and also found time to sing the praises of the national treasure which is the National Youth Choir of Scotland. A stalwart partner for several EIF shows this year it was also presenting its own performance at the High Kirk of St Giles as part of the Fringe. Five stars from Keith for it and them.

Read our reviews

• A brilliant reimagining
• EIF retelling lets no-one off the hook
• Musicians return to their Scots home
• Nycos St Giles review at St Giles