“Festival tickets are available through the Edinburgh International Festival hotline”. If you imagine that this means that to go to an show at the Edinburgh Festival, you pick up the ‘phone to the…Edinburgh Festival hotline, think again. You have not reckoned with the Festival mafia. A call to the main number puts you in a queue accompanied not by Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, but a mellifluous voice telling you that the festival only happens because of the generous sponsorship of the likes of Lloyds TSB, Scotrail and IBM and perhaps you too might like to add a suitable sum to the ticket price when you come to pay.
Hoping to secure 2 tickets to Die Zauberflöte, and in the midst of mental arithmetic about what the going rate for a “sponsor gratuity” might be, I was put through to the box office and was informed kindly but pityingly that there were no tickets left and a search of cancellations would probably prove fruitless…Yes, no returns today. Might I be interested in some other tickets, and…perhaps something else? Feeling increasingly unenthusiastic about becoming the Festival’s latest sponsor as my preferred show were sold out, I did find tickets available to an “exciting new production” by a relatively unknown playwright, which was premièring at the festival. In this situation it pays to be prepared. In a restaurant if your first choice turns out to be off the menu, you do well to have an alternative or even third selection up your sleeve.
Tickets now available
Most official festival tickets are easily available now, but bear in mind that all those big name sponsors have already had the pick of the big name show tickets. The Festival Mafia do not pay for all that expensive sponsorship for nothing. They know the number to ring, the very hour that hot tickets come on sale. They live locally, and know where to go to buy tickets in person, and they pick up all the festival gossip, which seldom reaches the ears of a festival-goer who is only a visitor. If it is suspiciously easy to secure great tickets to a new show, better go for the first night. There may not be a second night.
No smoking
But the Edinburgh Festival is much more than just the official shows. Dozens of other events are listed in all good “What’s on” lists, and the Festival website is not the only place to start. The Festival has the Fringe, and the Fringe has a fringe of its own, although there are limits, as my brother Charlie found out, when, as student at the University, he put on a pre-festival “fringe” play which coincided with the 1970 Commonwealth Games being held in Edinburgh. The only person who came to the play was a young Kiwi nurse taking a day off. Some shows just happen without much prior warning. Think of the Festival itself as the Event, and do not worry too much about pre-booking all your tickets. Some amateur performances are electric and all seasoned festival-goers have a store of “I saw them before they were famous” tales. The atmosphere in Edinburgh at festival time is heady stuff. For official listings See www.eif.co.uk or ‘phone the Hub information line on 0131 473 2099