It’s an iconic cultural and arts festival which brings together aesthetics from all over the world. The Edinburgh International Festival hosts three weeks of the most exciting novelists, academics and dance acts in the Scottish realms of arts.

Over the past few years the festival has sought to radically improve the scale and quality of its digital and online activities, not least because online communications has become ever more important to the success of arts organisations. Last year, almost half of tickets were purchased via the festival's website. The festival has over 50,000 email subscribers, its Twitter page attracted over 3,000 followers and its Facebook page has over 2,000 fans.

So, amongst all the glittering glamour and sensational stage performance runs a complex network that goes unnoticed to thousands of Festival goers. For the past four years Lumison has been delivering the Festival’s Network Service, supplying the hardware, software and services including managed web and database servers, dual leased lines, providing internet connectivity and email routing, ADSL lines allowing for remote access to the Festival’s network and support for secure ticket bookings.

What makes supporting this event so challenging is that for the best part of the year the site is virtually dormant – until the season begins, at which point the hosting platform takes a hammering. This is a problem familiar to all festivals, so the service needs to be reliable enough to take the heat to cope with the sudden demands placed upon it when a limited amount of tickets go on sale.

This year we’re delighted to be sponsoring the sold out closing concert at the Usher Hall. Fans of Mahler's Eighth Symphony will be in for a treat when the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra brings the curtain down on another successful season for the festival.

For more information go to http://eif.co.uk