I told my wife i would book on line,But no, I will do it,So she stood for hours in a queue,More fool her.

#1 - At least your wife may have got some tickets - I spent a lot of time yesterday trying to get through on the phone, but could not even get access to the queue system until this morning. The website was also down all day yesterday. Finally got booked today though, sure it will be worth it. Perhaps next year, the organisers ought to make more robust arrangements - the queues outside Waterstone's were ridiculous. Old people sitting in chairs on the street, and a queue almost as far as Charlotte Square. Such a popular event needs to be better organised.

"...some technical difficulties..."

That's some understatement.

The website was down, the computers crashed at Waterstone's, and the phone lines were busy all day, leading to disgruntled customers in their hundreds.

Personally, I'd call it a bit of a disaster.

The Book Festival is very well organised.

There are phone and internet systems that can handle tens of thousands of simultaneous enquiries, and it might be possible to employ dozens of staff to handle counter bookings.

But it would be economically impossible for a relatively small organisation to afford those things just so that it could provide an exemplary service on one day per year - ie the first day of booking.

There are long queues on the first day, but that simply means that the event is a huge success. That's good news, not bad!

The Book Festival is the new T In The Park.

#4 Sean

I take your point about the Book Festival being a small organisation, and of course its resources are limited. However, what we saw yesterday was very far from being "an exemplary service".

To reiterate: the website wasn't working, compelling many people - some quite elderly - to join a long queue in George Street. Then the terminals went down, bringing the queue to a standstill. And everyone I chatted to in the queue had repeatedly tried unsuccessfully to book by phone.

Think about this - a reduction in the number of counter staff next year would further extend the length of the queues. By your logic, would this mean the event was even more successful?

So of course some additional resource should definitely be provided - on the first day of booking at any rate - to avoid a repetition.

Some folk ur stupid!
Get doon the library!
Nae queues and it disnae cost ye a penny.

I suspect that most of the tickets sold for events so far will be at the pensioners' reduced rate.

Internet booking doesn't work - too much pressure on the servers. Phone lines out of action. And the only people with the time to queue for hours are pensioners.

I went to Waterstones on both Monday and Tuesday, and the queue was outside of the shop and down the street.

I've handed in a written booking form and am keeping my fingers crossed that I get tickets for at least one or two of the events I'd like to see.

Got to laugh at the blue rinses. I saw the queues yesterday. Barely one under 60...

We thought this was going to happen so forked out some money to join the 'friends' con, sorry, early booking system.

Glad to say that we got tickets for everything we wanted including Bennet, Paxman, both Marr shows and another 7, but the system is very unfair now.

If you can't afford the 'friends' payment, and you have to go work the day the tickets go on sale, then you are guaranteed not to get tickets for the popular ones.

Which is very unfair.

A better system is required eg for each show, a third of the tickets on sale to the 'friends', a third on sale to the public on the day they go on sale, and a third on sale the day of the show.

I wonder if this'll be the year the tickets start appearing on eBay?

I bet next year there will be hardly any tickets left for public sale as like we missed out last year, so joined the friends system, more will do next year.

#2 Glad you got through.