• Edinburgh Fringe – a first for me

    Curious though it may seem after so many years associated with theatre I have never been to the Fringe. So when an offer of accommodation in Edinburgh came up a couple of months ago my wife and I leaped at the chance and decided to go.

    Getting a Press Pass for myself was quite trouble free; I have got them for our reviewers before and UK Theatre Web is quite an established website so my credentials were accepted. Quite reasonably they do not do press tickets with a +1 guest as shows often have small audiences and little income, but I did expect some help along the way.

    My accreditation came with a request to email ticket requirements to the press office once I had collected my ID code from their office … after pointing out that that would have to wait till I got there they emailed me the code.

    Several shows had already contacted us offering press tickets. Several venues sent us their lists and asked us to return our press ticket requirements to them. Then I got an email from the Media Office telling me to book my press tickets on their site (all I had to do was open the source code of the email and work out where their missing closing quote had destroyed the link, username, password and information!) …

    So …. four different ways of booking press tickets and no central way of tracking them (not even the Media website which says “just keep a copy of all email confirmations”) … messy and doomed to failure.

    Now, it would seem that none of these approaches can be used to reserve and pay for a +1 … which means that you have to

    • send in your press requests, wait for a response, then go on-line and try to buy tickets for the same performances (having searched for them and found them), or
    • book the paid for tickets in the hope that the press tickets will be forthcoming!

    Either way there is a fair chance that my wife and I will not be able to end up in the same shows at the same time and either way takes five times longer than a simple, central request and confirmation system.

    So I think that this constitutes my first Edinburgh Fringe review … shall we say 2*

    p.s. if you need a web developer to help out do let me know …

    Categories: Theatres, Tickets

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