THE Edinburgh International Festival has posted its highest-ever box office takings with ticket sales up a healthy 7 per cent on last year, organisers said yesterday.
The surge in sales – the final figure at the box office is estimated to be £2.63 million – is being attributed partly to the popularity of the festival's dance events programme.
Matthew Bourne's Dorian Gray became the biggest-selling dance event i
n the festival's history, with the sell-out show seen by more than 13,000 people.
Organisers said world events occurring during the festival period "lent powerful resonance" to its theme – Artists Without Borders – which included performers from Iran, Israel and Palestine.
However, they pointed in particular to the presence of the State Ballet of Georgia, who performed at the same time as the conflict in their country.
Nina Ananiashvili, prima ballerina and artistic director, speaking hours before starring in Giselle, one of the highlights of the festival, issued an emotional plea. "We need to be on stage, we need to show our country, we need to dance for our country," she said.
"We want to show who we are, what we do, and that art is something else we can talk about."
International bookings for Festival 08 were up 3 per cent on 2007, coming from all corners of the world, with a significant rise in art-lovers from the eastern fringes of Europe. One in three events at the festival sold out.
Jonathan Mills, the festival director, said while the programme had been drawn up prior to the current political situation, he believed audiences want to be part of something larger than themselves.
"People need a sense of community in times of peace and strife. If this can be promoted it means they are less likely to kill each other," Mr Mills said.
"I was delighted at how popular the dance programme was with everyone.
"Dorian Gray is a known story so people can relate to it, but I realised how he had actually made it very much a statement about our times which could embrace both American Psycho and David Beckham."
The success of the International Festival is in marked contrast to the Fringe, which last week announced a 10 per cent drop in sales, with problems in a new ticketing system partly to blame for the slump.
It was the first decline in ticket sales in eight years. Two days later, Fringe director Jon Morgan announced his resignation.
The Fringe board announced an inquiry into what went wrong with the ticketing system, as well as a broad-ranging review of how the festival is run.
Meanwhile, the end of the festival last night was marked by the spectacular 45-minute Bank of Scotland Fireworks Concert display over Edinburgh Castle.
Around 250,000 spectators turned out to watch the pyrotechnic extravaganza from vantage points across the city. They were wowed by the sight of tens of thousands of fireworks bursting open in a vast array of colours and patterns accompanied by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra performing a selection music conducted by Nicolae Moldoveanu.
Organisers said the fireworks shot up to 600ft into the air, making the
skies "dance with fireworks" as the crowds cheered the display. This year, organisers used more than four tonnes of explosives.
How the others measured upEdinburgh Military Tattoo• Tickets for the iconic event, held on the esplanade, of Edinburgh Castle took nearly three months longer to sell out this year than in 2007.
• Organisers said the US economic slump and the slowdown in UK consumer spending was largely to blame for the dip in sales.
• The Tattoo was officially sold out by April, but hundreds, rather than the usual dozens of tickets were returned.
&149 Highlights of this year's Tattoo included the band from The Royal Regiment of Scotland; bands from India, Singapore and Australia; the Golden Eagles Marching Band from Missouri and an all-girl marching drill team from Wellington, New Zealand.
• The Tattoo contributes well over £50 million to Edinburgh, and about £100 million to the nation as a whole.
The Edinburgh Fringe• The Fringe sold about 1.5 million tickets this year, against a record 1.7 million in 2007.
• It had more than 2,200 shows and 31,000 performers in a programme covering theatre, music and dance.
• At the final count, box office takings were down 10 per cent – the first such drop in sales in eight years.
• The new Liquid box office system failed on its first day and no back-up was in operation, leading to anger from some venue operators about ticket non-availability.
• Jon Morgan, the Fringe's director, resigned last week as two inquiries into what happened began.
• Highlights included Leonard Nimoy in a play he wrote about Vincent Van Gogh and Michael Barrymore starring in a production about the life of Spike Milligan.
The Edinburgh International Television FestivalThe EITF attracted more than 2,000 delegates from TV channels and production companies worldwide.
• Highlights included Peter Fincham, the former controller of BBC1, who gave the James MacTaggart Lecture speaking about the "Queengate" scandal – wrongly edited footage of the Queen for a documentary A Year With The Queen appeared to show her storm off in a huff.
• There were also appearances by celebrity chef Jamie Oliver discussing campaigning television, Sharon Osbourne on why celebrities want to appear on reality TV and Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan discussing their move to UKTV.
• Steven Moffat, recently made lead writer and executive producer of Doctor Who, said he would like to see the show made into a Hollywood film.
The Edinburgh International Book Festival• The event, now in its 25th year, attracted almost 200,000 visitors this year.
• Ticket sales rose by 3 per cent on last year, with 75 per cent of tickets being sold.
• The internet fuelled a ticket-buying spree with online sales up 33 per cent from last year. More than 300 of the festival's 750 events sold out before opening day.
• The highlight of the festival was the appearance of Sir Sean Connery who launched his memoir, Being A Scot, on 25 August – his 78th birthday. Tickets sold out in under an hour, the fastest-selling event in the 25 years of the festival.
• Other star turns included the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, as the "surprise guest" on the festival's opening day, plus Margaret Atwood and Sir Salman Rushdie.
The Festival of Politics• The four-day event held at the Scottish Parliament had 11 sold-out events this year, the largest number in its four-year history.
• More than 3,000 people attended 24 events.
• The "headline" act was due to be Scots musician Annie Lennox giving a lecture on the fight against HIV/Aids in South Africa. However, she was forced to pull out at short notice due to suffering a back injury.
&149 Guest speakers who did appear included former chancellor Lord Denis Healey; Douglas Hurd, formerly foreign secretary; actor Simon Callow talking about gay rights and comedian Mark Thomas, who said he learned about apartheid through a Dave Allen joke.
• The World Press Photo Exhibition, which is also part of the festival of politics and this year ran from 8-30 August, attracted more than 18,700 visitors.
The full article contains 1240 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
