Edinburgh Fringe mired in new ticket sales controversy

The Edinburgh Fringe has been accused of artificially inflating the number of ticket sales at this years festival by including free performances in the total number of ‘sold’ tickets.

The Fringe announced earlier this week that the festival had been a record breaking year for ticket sales, with just under 2 million tickets sold for different shows across the festival.

However according to new figures unveiled by The Scotsman, the real ticket sales numbers were infact much lower than previously thought.

According to the newspaper, the Fringe's annual report claims 1,859,235 tickets were ‘sold’ during the 2009 Fringe while a news release purporting to announce the success of this year's Fringe said an estimated 1,955,913 tickets had been "sold" by the final day of the Festival.

The Scotsman revealed that an estimated 120,000 extra sales had been added to the total for the past two years by taking unallocated tickets from free fringe festival performances and lumping them in with ordinary ticket sales.

The actual number of tickets sold were in the region of 1,739,235 for 2009 and 1,829,931 for 2010 respectively.

The Fringe has also excluded Laughing Horse's rival promoter, Peter Buckley Hill, who staged more than 200 different shows at other venues

The Fringe's annual report claims 1,859,235 tickets were "sold" during last year's event, while a news release heralding the success of this year's Fringe said an estimated 1,955,913 tickets had been "sold" by Monday, the final day of the Festival.

But according to new figures released by the Fringe last night the sales figures were 1,739,235 and 1,829,931 respectively.

Speaking to the newspaper, the Fringe spokesman Neil Mackinnon defended the decision to include an estimate of attendance at free shows, insisting they had become an "integral part of the Festival".

He added: "The venues have a good idea of how many people are attending shows because of health and safety and fire regulations, and Laughing Horse have given us estimates for the last two years.

"We asked Peter Buckley Hill to provide the same estimates but he has refused and that is why his shows are not included. We did say in our announcement on Monday that the box office figure was an estimate.”