The Edinburgh Festival Fringe’s central booking office has already taken nearly £2m in advance bookings, and the Fringe doesn’t officially begin for another week.

This year may turn out to be a watershed year for Edinburgh’s several festivals as a whole. Four of them are under new management: the Edinburgh Tattoo, the film festival, the International Festival and most recently the Fringe, where Jon Morgan succeeded Paul Gudgin as director only a few weeks ago.