Two months after the collapse of on-line booking at the Edinburgh Fringe box office, Pivotal Integration, the IT company that supplied the e-ticketing system, has gone into administration.

The development is the latest in a series of box office disasters to beset the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society, and was revealed during an unusually raucous annual meeting at the weekend. Fringe officials emphasised that this latest blow will have no effect on ticket sales this year, but venue managers and promoters expressed anger and disappointment that ticketing problems showed no signs of ending.

Having spent months commissioning and testing their new package and then watching it collapse in June, festival organisers had recently expressed cautious optimism about the future of their on-line booking system. But with Glasgow-based Pivotal now in administration, the Fringe Society is almost certain to require a new systems supplier, or be obliged to hire expensive additional expertise to make the existing package work.

It is understood that Pivotal appointed an administrator, Kenny Craig, of Tenon Corporate Recovery, last Thursday. Their system, called Liquid Box Office, was purchased by the Fringe Society in the spring for £350,000, which was to be paid over three years. Only a relatively small proportion of the total has so far been paid, and it is understood that the contract contained penalty clauses should the system run into difficulties.

That it undoubtedly did. Designed to deal with an increasing demand for Fringe tickets, the system was launched on June 9 but its services were suspended the following day. Seven weeks later, on the eve of the first shows, not a single ticket from the 150,000 sold had been mailed out.

Jon Morgan, the Fringe director, confirmed that the society retained the software licence for the Liquid Box Office, and said the society could “go down a number of routes” including developing the package in-house, if that seemed the best way forward. However, Julian Caddy, the promoter of Sweet venues, said he had not been reassured when he heard that the Fringe Society was prepared to continue to develop Pivotal software. “They don't consider it a problem, but I've heard that one before, and it doesn't inspire any confidence that the company is now in administration,” Mr Caddy said.

To make matters worse, the process of revising the box office ticketing system is likely to be delayed by the fact that three separate inquiries are now looking into the structure of the Fringe and its box office.

“This is the most comprehensive and transparent review into how we sell Fringe tickets that has ever been undertaken,” Mr Morgan said.

Such reassurance cut little ice with promoters who attended Saturday's annual meeting. Mike Duffy, a theatre director, told the meeting that many performers and venue managers no longer had faith in the Fringe organisation.

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