The Edinburgh Festival Fringe’s web site is being hosted by Rackspace this year under a flexible short-term contract to cope with the expected high levels of ticket sales.

The www.edfringe.com site allows the expected half a million visitors to the arts festival to buy tickets online, get venue information and performance times for the 1,867 shows during the three week run.

The festival which is approaching its 60th year is the world’s largest arts festival and its web site is critical to its success.

Dave Ball of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, said: ‘The Fringe website has become the virtual nerve centre for the overall organisation of the event. Visitors and performers expect access to up to the minute information, such as ticket availability, show times and venue locations.’

He says Rackspace was chosen because it guarantees a 100 per cent uptime and provides crucial backup through its Fanatical Support customer service. Such guarantees are necessary to cope with any dramatic rise in demand.

‘This type of event can generate sudden, unpredictable spikes in traffic when a particular act captures the imagination of the public. Downtime during this peak time could mean the difference between a sell-out performance and an empty theatre,’ he said.

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