This Sunday's your very last chance to get tickets for the Edinburgh International Festival's famous end-of-season fireworks concert, which brings the curtain down on the Festival on Sunday 31 August this year.  To a live orchestral accompaniment, upwards of 100,000 pyrotechnics will go up in the air in an intense, spectacular 45-minute show.

As the Fringe moves closer to its final week, a few of this year's most sought-after acts have squeezed in extra shows.  Joan Rivers, Michael McIntyre and Paul Merton have all added extra dates, while a host of comedians playing at the massive Pleasance have also tucked in a new performance or two.

Edinburgh Fringe 2008 may be a week old already, but this weekend sees the start of two more of August's major Festivals.  Today, the Edinburgh International Festival's opening concert brings the curtain up on the "official" event, whose prestigious programme runs through to the end of the month.  And tomorrow, it's the Edinburgh International Book Festival's turn in the (sadly metaphorical) sun, as it opens up its tented village on Charlotte Square.

The doom-sayers predicted a Terminal 5 moment - a big launch hopelessly doomed to fail.  But as the Fringe fired up amidst continuing fall-out from the catastrophic failure of its new ticketing system, the central box office stumbled, faltered... and somehow carried on.