For more than 50 years the Edinburgh Festival Fringe has been the proving ground for the best British comedians. But now a war has broken out between promoters - and nobody is laughing.

Two months after the organisers of a new Edinburgh Comedy Festival announced that their event would be “bigger than Glastonbury”, another comedy club has announced its programme with a claim to be the biggest comedy producer on the Fringe.

The Stand club gave details of its 2008 Fringe programme last night, revealing a bill of 36 productions on four stages. Tommy Sheppard, the club's owner, said that it would remain resolutely outside the Comedy Festival staged by rival promoters at the Assembly, the Pleasance, the Gilded Balloon and the Underbelly. “We will actively resist any attempts to break away from the Edinburgh Festival Fringe,” he said. “There are 49 comedy venues on the Fringe - we all need to work together. They are suggesting the Edinburgh Comedy Festival is an all-embracing brand, and it's not - probably half the comedy in Edinburgh is staged outside their venues.”

His views were echoed by Daniel Kitson, the Perrier Award-winning comedian, who said that he was bringing two shows to Edinburgh and was delighted that neither would be under the “divisive, finance-orientated auspices of the spurious and damaging” new festival.

“The Edinburgh Fringe is, to my mind, the greatest festival in the world and its open ethos is more under threat this year than ever, due to the collusion of four major venues in what is little more than a divisive and self-serving exercise in sponsorship chasing,” Mr Kitson said.

The attacks brought a stinging response from Charlie Wood, a co-director of the Underbelly, who said that Mr Sheppard's opposition was based on his position as a promoter of the rival festival, which takes places in March.

“We spoke to Tommy Sheppard at the end of last year. He was opposed to it because of his own Glasgow Comedy Festival. That strikes me as a double standard,” Mr Wood said.

“It's great that he's producing 36 shows but we are raising money to sustain 600 shows in all art forms across our venues.”

Two months ago a glossy, 24-page brochure was circulated to potential sponsors by the Edinburgh Comedy Festival which boasted that the event was “a new, clearly definable brand” that would “define the comedy element and be bigger than all the summer music festivals put together”.

Sponsorship money is expected to toal £1.8million, though it is understood that a title sponsor has yet to be found. Mr Wood denied that this commercial pitch had been “a cynical move” but was an effort to sustain the whole Fringe.

“Daniel Kitson and others got going in their careers because of the Fringe, and he gets paid well,” he said. “What they have to understand is that venues rely on bar, box office and sponsorship for funding and so far we have largely been sustained by just the first two. The whole of the Fringe economy is very fragile.”

He said that eventually the Comedy Festival intended to be all-embracing. “You have to start somewhere. It's hard enough to get the four of us to work together, let alone all sorts of other venues.”

The rival promoters will host some of the world's best-known comedians this year. The Stand will present established Fringe performers such as Jo Caulfield and Stewart Lee, the creator of Jerry Springer - the Opera, and Perrier-award winners such as Kitson and Phil Nichol, as well as providing a stage for Arnold Brown, the veteran Scottish comic.

Highlight acts for the Edinburgh Comedy Festival include Ruby Wax, Joan Rivers, a Clive James chat show and Richard Herring.