THE FESTIVAL FRINGE'S TICKET MISERY HAS DEEPENED WITH the announcement that telephone and counter sales will be suspended for today and tomorrow in a bid to resolve the fiasco that has left thousands ticketless with less than two weeks before the start of the world's biggest arts festival.

This is the second time ticket sales have been suspended since the launch of the Fringe programme last month. But Jon Morgan, the Fringe director, insisted that the show would most definitely still go on.

"We are absolutely clear that the Fringe will run as planned and we would encourage everyone to continue buying tickets," he said. "We apologise for the inconvenience our problems will cause, but by working with the 247 venues involved we will be able to ensure that ticketing services can be delivered."

Morgan stressed that bookings already made through the Fringe box office will be fulfilled, and people expecting their tickets in the post will be contacted this week with information on how to collect them personally. Online sales will still be operational today and tomorrow.

Venues with their own box offices, including the Assembly, Gilded Balloon, Underbelly and Pleasance, have continued to sell their own tickets and are reporting no issues with their systems.

The deadline for printing and delivering of the 150,000 tickets already sold for Fringe shows was last Wednesday.

The problem stems from a new box-office IT system, supplied by Pivotal Integration, which crashed and had to be suspended the day after it was launched. An alternative system was put in place on June 17, more than a week later, allowing tickets to be sold online, over the phone and over the counter. However, a full box-office system is required in order to print tickets and mail them out.

Last year the Fringe sold more than 600,000 tickets on behalf of performers, amounting to 36% of all Fringe ticket sales. The rest were bought direct from venues.

Venue managers remain confident all the glitches will be ironed out.

"Ticket sales are strong," said Charlie Wood, director of the Underbelly. "There are problems, but they will be resolved."

"We're lucky enough to have our own box office system with the Underbelly, Pleasance and Assembly, so we can cross-sell each other's tickets," said a spokesman for the Gilded Balloon.

Edinburgh city council festival and events champion Steve Cardownie said: "Although the Fringe is experiencing some difficulties at the moment, I am confident that they have everything under control.

"They are shrewd operators and I'm sure they are handling this well. Tickets can still be bought and all shows are going ahead as planned."