Busy week for Perth Festival ticket sales

Apr 2 2010 by Alison Anderson, Perthshire Advertiser Friday

TICKETS for the 39th Perth Festival of the Arts (May 19-30) have been flying out of the box office since it opened on Monday – thanks in part to a poster campaign in Scotland’s trains and railway stations.

The campaign has been part-funded by EventScotland with the aim of increasing the Festival’s out-of-town audience figures.

Yet news of the Festival’s eclectic and top quality programme has reached parts unvisited by Scotland’s trains – including Chicago and the 16-pupil primary school on the tiny west coast island of Luing, which lies 19 miles south of Oban.

Yet there has also been a tremendous home support for this year’s Perth Festival, which forms part of the Perth 800 programme, borne out by an unprecedented queue at Perth Concert Hall on Monday morning waiting for the box office to open for Fetsival ticket sales.

Festival administrator Sandra Ralston described box office and internet ticket sales plus website hits over the past few days as “incredible.”

“We launched our new website on Sunday night and since then it’s going crazy.

“We’re absolutely thrilled with out tickets sales for our Perth 800 programme.

“Our new website is sponsored this year by EventScotland which has a fresh, clean look which we hope people will like.

“On Monday when booking opened we had 1790 page views – a record for us.

“Most popular at the moment are The Halle (the Brewin Dolphin Festival Concert with Alison Balsom on May 30), Moscow State Symphony Orchestra ((May 23) and Sharleen Spiteri (May 29), but there are tickets for all the shows. People are booking right across the board – it’s lovely.”

The Festival-goer from Chicago had only one event on her wish-list – the Sharleen Spiteri concert on May 29. Sandra explained: “They are huge Sharleen Spiteri fans and have changed their travel plans so they can see her in Perth Concert Hall.”

Other Festival excitement whipped up overseas (albeit just a couple of hundred metres of the Cuan Sound) is for The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain (May 25). The plucking pupils aged five to 11 of Luing Primary School have been learning the ukulele since last October and have formed their own orchestra.

Head-teacher Stephen Glen-Lee said: “They have just given their first big performance and performed so well that we have decided to take them to see the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain at the Perth Festival as a reward and as inspiration for the future.”

The eclectic Festival programme includes three orchestral concerts, three operas, rock concerts, jazz, comedy, drama, a Festival fling, audiences with ..., and children’s events, all spread across three venues – Perth Concert Hall, Perth Theatre and St John’s Kirk – plus a special Festival art exhibition, Artist Rooms, which includes 232 works by Andy Warhol.

Full details are in the Festival brochure and online at www.perthfestival.co.uk