Karen Koren: Treats in store at this year’s Festival

I’VE just put our Edinburgh Festival brochure to bed. It’s a great feeling when all the shows have been proofed and the final result has been seen on screen.

Our programme with Assembly, Pleasance and Underbelly is gigantic – it is so impressive to see so many great shows coming to the Capital.

Of course, the Fringe programme itself is very impressive and it amazes me how big the event has become - truly the largest arts festival in the world.

Next Thursday morning the Edinburgh Festival Fringe will launch the 2012 Fringe brochure. Though there have been a lot of leaks in the press over the past few weeks, there is still so much more to be announced, lots of weird and wonderful shows.

Obviously I am not going to give the game away and tell you any more, otherwise we will have no more surprises up our sleeve. Just trust me when I say that there are some great shows.

With George Street opening up with the Famous Spiegeltent and my very good friend David Bates with Le Clique (I believe), we in Bristo Square will have some healthy rivalry. Edinburgh deserves to have shows all over the city and it certainly felt different not having Festival shows in George Street last year.

Many of my colleagues were worried about the Olympics being on at the same time. However, I feel that we are going to have a bumper year and all of us will enjoy watching the sporting events on screens we will provide at the venues.

I also believe that the people who are mad about sport will attend the Olympics and theatre and comedy audiences and tourists will still come to Edinburgh and enjoy our brilliant Festival. I’ll go into more detail about some of our shows over the next few weeks and let you know what not to miss.