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The Fringe draws to a close today after what many people are predicting is going to be a record year.

Stay at home audiences seem to be the main factor in the upturn - which has seen some venues up by as much as 50% in the opening weeks - but having a working box office has also helped get back on track after last year's box office melt-down.

But for many shows, the Fringe is just the starting point. The creators of Crabbit - a children's musical - which has been at the Gilded Balloon for the past few weeks are hopeful it'll guarantee them a short run in a theatre in London's West End.

The show is based on a book by Edinburgh based author Julie Hegarty, who's been touring the show's anti-bullying message round Scottish schools for the past three years.

The recession was the unlikely catalyst for turning it into a musical. Husband Tim had been a songwriter with Irish band D:ream when they first met and returned to the trade with the demise of his property company.

Now they're in talks with an animation company as well as hoping to take the show on tour around the UK.

Others going on to London include David O'Doherty, Reginald D Hunter, Laura Solon the Pajama Men, Kim Noble, Mikelangelo and The Black Sea Gentlemen, Paul Foot, Allan Cochraine and Shappi Khorsandi.

Many comedians will be off to the other comedy festivals - including the well respected Australian events (Melbourne in particular sees a lot of trade between the two countries). Many of those who staff the festivals will also head down under.

Maria Teece who's performing in Viva has a worldwide tour ahead with dates in Dubrovnik, Dublin Fringe Festival and New York, followed by a tour of Ireland.

David Leddy's double bill is going in two directions - Sessurus is going to Oxford and Milan while his show White Tea - in which the audience wears kimonos and sips tea - is touring Scotland immediately after the festival.

Meanwhile, three shows will be back at next year's international festival as winners of the Edinburgh International Festival Fringe Prize 2009. The prize encourages greater co-operation between fringe and international festival by selecting work from this year's fringe, to be staged again at next year's festival.

This year's selection - announced this morning - includes a Gothic puppet play - Lily Through the Dark by Hampshire-based theatre company The River People, the aforementioned White Tea by our very own David Leddy and Is That All There Is, a blistering comedy drama about a couple on the brink of marriage by Inspector Sands theatre company.

All three shows will feature in next year's Edinburgh International Festival programme.

Nice to see that environmental art company NVA have managed to find another way of keeping their work alive long after the show is over.

The Glasgow-based company created the ambitious work Half Life with the National Theatre of Scotland two years ago. As well as a performance in a forest in Argyll, it included walks and art interventions in historic sites around the area - regarded as one of the richest spots in the world as far as neolithic culture goes.

NVA now have a website which gives new interpretations of the works and the sites that can still be visited, along with downloadable maps and directions.

The four main routes include some of the most powerful existing Neolithic sites and forts in the area along with three NVA interventions, designed by Simon Costin and James Johnson in collaboration with Angus Farquhar. For more information see www.halflife.org.uk

Meanwhile better late than never for the Edinburgh International Festival. A performance of Don Quixote which had to be cancelled last year when the Staatskapelle Dresden made it to Edinburgh but their instruments didn't, is being restaged tonight.

Festival director Jonathan Mills promised the show would go on and true to his word, the Strauss piece will be played tonight by the ´óÏó´«Ã½ SSO under their new conductor Donald Runnicles, alongside works by Brahms and Webern.

Cellist, Jan Vogler, who was due to play in last year's concert, is the soloist.