IT is to be expected that in the process of handling and dispatching around 1.7 million tickets for over 2000 shows during the Fringe that glitches would occur.
But the ticketing chaos witnessed over the last few weeks has done considerable damage to the reputation of one of the world's leading festivals and as soon as the curtain has fallen on the final acts steps must be taken to ensure it never happens a
gain.
Such was the magnitude of the problem that ticket sales were suspended on no less than three occasions in the run up to the opening shows last weekend. Behind the scenes, staff desperately worked around the clock to deal with a backlog of 150,000 tickets applications which were in danger of not reaching customers in time for performances after initial deadlines were missed.
The blame was quickly put on to a new ticketing system which failed to cope with 20,000 applications on the first day tickets went on sale. But it soon became apparent that the problems were much deeper and that the £330,000 computerised box office was not up to the task.
While some received no tickets at all others were sent multiples of what they had ordered. With thousands of people who booked tickets having to show up and collect them personally, miraculously the opening weekend still went well and records in some areas were even broken. But who is to say that the audiences could not have been better? How many potential customers were put off by the ticket hassles will never be known.
Fears of overbooking also surfaced and yesterday the Evening News highlighted the case of 30 upset youngsters being turned away from a children's show which was overbooked. They will be compensated for their financial losses but not for the disappointment of missing a show to which they had been looking forward.
The legacy of last month's failings also lives on with reports in the last few days of festival-goers continuing to queue for hours – often in the pouring rain – to collect tickets. And while there might be some sympathy for the organisers over computer failures, it is simply not good enough for an event of this stature.
Hotel and guest house bookings for this year's summer Festivals are already at an all-time low and the credit crunch must shoulder much of the blame.
But if the general appeal of the Edinburgh Festivals is beginning to wane, then an urgent investigation is needed to discover the root causes. The Festivals are far too important to the city to make an assumption that any decline is due to matters beyond the city's control.
The ticket fiasco was entirely avoidable, and after the disastrous Scottish Parliament election, who can trust any new computer system which claims to streamline what was previously a simple and reliable process?
The full article contains 490 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
