Humphrey Tyler
APART from culture, if the National Arts Festival has done anything this year it has proved that Grahamstown needs more traffic lights, especially at the drop-dead, God save you T- junction on the way to the towering Monument Building.
There is also a variety of four-way stop streets that may be okay for gentle rustics, but sometimes prove a bit trying for visitors desperately hopping from show to show.
The crisis has been exacerbated this year by a sometimes astonishing increase in the number of visitors to the festival this year. Early figures suggested that this year could be a record for the festival and late-week figures seemed to confirm it.
For a start, rueful traffic police noted early on that there was a 30 percent increase in day trippers alone during the first weekend. The cops did their best to control the cars by manning key junctions and waving their arms like windmills.
Although top Main programme productions have been booked out quickly, the Fringe is showing the greatest attendance increase. By the end of the fifth day for example, 90 213 Fringe tickets had been sold. Last year the figure was 68 907. In 1992, the biggest festival until now, the corresponding figure was 84 179.
Ticket prices are up this year but not madly. On the Main programme, the most expensive tickets _ for opera and symphony concerts _ are up from R37 last year to R43. Main programme drama tickets are up from R18 to R22.
There is a bigger jump on the Fringe. Last year the average price of tickets was R10,50; this year the average is R13,70.
The number of Fringe productions has also increased, from 344 last year to around 380. The number of performances is likely to total more than 52 700 by the time the festival ends on Sunday. That’s more than 5 200 shows a day.