By John Ritchie
The final
piece of the Fringe booking fiasco jigsaw fell into place yesterday when Jon
Morgan confirmed that the ticketing and booking problem had been an inheritance
from the previous Fringe Administrator.
Five or six
years ago the big three (now four) venues started discussing the common
ticketing situation. They got together with the then Fringe Director Paul
Gudgin to discuss a unified booking system using the same system and software
throughout all of the venues, this, according to Anthony Alderson of the
Pleasance, was agreed by all. They spoke
to Tony Davie of the Wembly ticket system, and were then set to develop
collectively a system that all could use with the same software. Nobody is sure
when the Fringe office decided to use a different system or why.
The
speculative allege that Paul Gudgin decided to take it down a separate road in
order for the Fringe office to have more money, higher fees, or more control and
power over ticket sales. This has yet to be proved; all we know is this is
where the problem arose.
So it is not the present Fringe administration to
blame for this fiasco; their actions have been fire fighting a damage
limitation situation due to the legacy of the previous administration.
Most of the
people involved believe that the only way to move forward is to scrap the
present systems and start again, with one software system so everybody has a
compatible situation. The two-tier ticket system which exists at this time is costing more than
twice as much as it should and more: instead of costing fifteen pence, it is
costing up to fifty to sixty pence per ticket.
So next year, instead
of the costs being one million pounds, the cost will be in excess of two million
pounds. This money could be saved by creating a central marketing and ticketing
office for all the Festivals and venues, not just the Fringe, which could be
self-financing.
In fact, the whole marketing centre idea could be taken on from
there by adding a centralised international press centre for all the festivals
with it own satellite Edinburgh Festival television channel for the month of
the summer festivals, only then would we be able to promote our city and its festivals
properly on the international stage.
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