Will's Web Watch: Fringe benefits

Apologies firstly for the fact it's been a while since my last column - I've been performing up in Edinburgh on the Fringe.

OK, so I held a guy's unicycle for him while he mounted it, but it would have been a much less enjoyable - and potentially more bloodied - performance without me filling such a vital role.

Granted, as brushes with fame go, it's not exactly one to write home about but there was plenty in the Scottish capital that was worthy of note.

The reason for my visit to Edinburgh was to meet a company that has quietly been making waves in the ISP world, under the changing guise of edNET and now Lumison.

As the former, must-have-taken-hours-to-come-up-with name suggests, the company is based in Edinburgh and previously focussed primarily on carving out a niche for itself in the surrounding area but it is now keen to appear far less localised and spread its wings nationwide and globally - hence the geo-non-specific name change.

However, one of its most significant ties with the city of its birth remains the provision of internet services to the annual Edinburgh Fringe Festival - the largest arts festival in the world.

It's an association that Aydin Kurt-Elli, CEO of Lumison, takes great pride in talking me through when we meet at his company's office.

The EdFringe.com website handles booking for all shows and performances - complementing and co-ordinating all ticket sales via outlets in venues and in the Fringe Box Office - and also offers up to date information on acts, reviews, venues and the city at large as well as online shopping for Fringe merchandise, such as T-shirts, toys mugs and posters.

The site is a joint effort of resources across Lumison's growing family of business units. Designed and managed by Lightershade, a separate web agency division of the company, it is hosted by Lumison, which also provides leased lines and ADSL VPN access to all venues and internet access for festival-goers via terminals in the central festival ticket office.

Last year Lightershade scooped the Scottish tourist board's Thistle Award for IT Innovation for the EdFringe.com website and this year the firm has raised the bar once more.

The website has now become an integral part of the festival. In 2002 the festival organisers sold 29 per cent of tickets online. In 2003 that figure rose to 43 per cent. This year EdFringe.com has accounted for the majority of ticket sales, breaking through the 50 per cent milestone.

In many respects it is the embodiment of how the internet has revolutionised the leisure and entertainment sector, made all the more impressive by the fact that is designed specifically to cater for little more than a month's worth of events.

Furthermore the development of the site into the main booking channel reflects the truly international appeal of the Festival.

With visitors coming from the all over the world, the traditional box offices would never meet the growing demand for tickets in the same way that the internet consistently rises to the task.

While locals can still get tickets by calling in person, for those visiting from further afield (and there are enough Australian, South African and US accents around me on the streets to suggest the appeal stretches way beyond Europe) the website provides an important outlet for the rest of the world.

It seems almost trite to make such an obvious point - especially in a column that assumes a level of web-savvy - but it's worth reminding ourselves that it wasn't always this easy.

On the first day of sale, the website accounted for 62 per cent of all tickets sold for Fringe performances - handling the initial clamour for in-demand shows with no reported hitches. The final figures for the website were compiled today and early optimism following that record-breaking first day was certainly not misplaced.

Nick Cole, head of business development at Lightershade, said this year's stats are "phenomenal".

"They have blown last year's record-breaking stats to pieces," he added. In total the EdFringe.com website processed around 40,000 individual transactions, shifting more than 175,000 tickets and turning over more than £1.6m in revenue.

I personally accounted for just eight of the tickets sold during my stay in Edinburgh but can strongly recommend (not the) Will Smith's '10 Arguments I should have won' if he ever brings his one-man show to your particular part of the world. And before this starts to read like a theatre review, there is plenty in there for the techie, as Smith powers his multimedia stand-up show from a shiny titanium laptop that spends far more time centre stage than even he does.

Technology is indeed taking over the festival.