Booking Information

The Box Office opens for booking at 10am on Friday 20 June.

Booking online

You can have confidence that the Book Festival online ticket-buying system is fully secure. All credit card transactions processed from this site are encrypted to create a secure and convenient service. Tickets will be posted to you unless you are booking less than 7 days before the event. If this is the case you will be advised to collect your tickets from the Entrance Tent in Charlotte Square Gardens on the booking confirmation email which will be sent to you automatically once you have submitted your payment details.

Ticket prices

Adult events range from £5.00 - £12.00
(£4.00 - £10.00 concessions)
Some adult events are free
Children's events range from £2.00 - £3.50
Some children's events are free

Concession prices are available to:

Over 60s
Students
Disabled people
Young Scot cardholders
Registered unemployed
Under 16s

Proof of entitlement will be required.

Payment: we accept Visa / Delta / Maestro / Mastercard. Cheques should be made payable to Edinburgh International Book Festival. Bookings are subject to a £1 booking fee unless tickets are purchased in person (this is applied to each transaction, not each ticket booked). Tickets cannot be exchanged nor money refunded. Where ticket demand is high for sold out events, we may offer a refund subject to a £1 handling fee.

Events and seating: Events are 1 hour long useless otherwise specified in the event listing. All our seating is unreserved (seats don't have numbers) and therefore you can sit anywhere in the auditorium you wish.

Latecomers: Please be considerate and arrive in good time for your event. Latecomers are hugely disruptive to audience members and authors and will not be admitted after the beginning of events. Refunds will not be given to latecomers. We recommend you do not book back-to-back events (where one event finishes at the same time the other starts) as it is extremely unlikely you will get to the second event in time for the start. Please note that leaving an event early can also be disruptive to fellow audience members and authors.

Booking tickets by phone: 0845 373 5888
The Box Office is open from 10am - 5pm daily from Fri 20 - Sat 28 June, then Mon to Sat only from Mon 30 June to Fri 8 Aug. During the festival (9 - 25 August) the telephone lines are open daily from 9.30am - 8.30pm.

Please be aware that the first few days of booking are extremely busy. We will do our best to deal with calls quickly, however you may not get through immediately. Calls from BT landlines are charged at the local rate, regardless of where you are calling from. Charges will vary from other phone networks - please check with your phone provider.

Booking tickets by post: Please use the booking form at the back of the brochure and post it to: Box Office, Edinburgh International Book Festival, PO BOX 23835, Edinburgh EH2 4WS. You can download a copy of the brochure from every page of this website or pick up a copy from most bookshops and libraries in Scotland. Alternatively email mailinglist@edbookfest.co.uk, ask to fill out a mailing list form, and we will post you a copy of the brochure.

New for 2008!

Booking tickets in person: As we have no year-round public building of our own and therefore no Box Office counter, we provide a temporary Box Office counter before the Book Festival starts for those people who prefer to book in person. Please note our Box Office counter can only process in-person bookings.

For the first 3 days of booking only, Fri 20 - Sun 22 Jun from 10am - 5pm: Edinburgh International Conference Centre, 150 Morrison Street, Edinburgh

After the first 3 days of booking, Mon 23 Jun - Fri 8 Aug from 10am - 5pm, Mon to Sat: Waterstones Book Shop, 83 George Street, Edinburgh

Once the Book Festival has opened on 9 August our Box Office counter is on site in Charlotte Square Gardens in the Entrance Tent. Open 9.30am - 8.30pm daily.

Please read our Terms and Conditions of Sale before purchasing tickets.