An independent inquiry into the box office problems encountered at this year's Edinburgh Festival Fringe could lead to a shake-up of the entire running of the festival.

Yesterday Jon Morgan, director of the Fringe, met representatives of 40 Fringe venues to gather their support for an independent review which will not only study the causes and consequences of the box-office problems, but also the way forward for the Fringe Society, which runs the event.

One source present at the meeting said there was a "whole spectrum" of emotions expressed.

Mr Morgan said it had been "constructive", and that no Fringe venues were seeking financial compensation because of the box-office faults.

Tim Hawkins, who has been involved with the Fringe for 25 years and twice served on the Fringe board, has been appointed as a temporary general manager to lead the organisation of the review, though he will take no part in the review.

The review will study this year's box-office problems and the running of the Fringe Society itself, which was established in 1959.

Mr Morgan said: "There will be those broader questions: next year is 50 years of the Fringe Society, and in those 50 years, the Fringe as an event has changed massively, and like any properly run organisation, it's important to review what we do and how we do it and whether we want to change that in the future."

He added: "It is significant that the review is independent, that anyone can contribute to the review, and it will be published. It's important that it's objective and seen to be objective.

"The review will look both backwards and forwards - it's important that we review the process by which we made the decision to install the box-office system and the decision itself, and it will make recommendations about going forward, with the principal goal of having a box-office system that we can use next year."

He added: "The box office is fundamental to every venue on the Fringe, the concern that has been raised only proves how important our role is to the whole ecology of the Fringe.

"If there is any fault by the Fringe Society at any level, we don't want to hide that."

On venues losing money because of the box-office problems, Mr Morgan said other factors may be at play if venues are not making money this year.

"It's not about trying to whitewash anything, but there are other factors such as hotel bookings being down this year, fewer tourists from the US this year.

"Every year some venues are more successful than others - you cannot make those connections until it is properly assessed: and we are only one week into a three-week festival," he said.

The problems began when a new system, called the Liquid Box Office and supplied by Pivotal Integration of Glasgow, was launched by the Fringe on June 9 at the cost of £350,000 over three years. Services were suspended the following day.

There were two main problems: on day one of sales, the system performed so slowly that it would not have been able to sustain the volume of work required of it during the festival, according to Mr Morgan.

Secondly, once the system was up and running, it could not, or had difficulty with, printing tickets, which could not then be sent out to customers.

The problems led to queues for tickets outside the Fringe office on the High Street, customers getting their tickets late and some venues saying that some performances had been sold twice.

The system is now up and running with no problems, the Fringe said last night.

Yesterday, Laura Mackenzie Stuart, of Universal Arts, chairwoman of the 18-strong Associated Independent Venue Producers, spoke of the Fringe being on the brink of "financial ruin".

Mr Morgan flatly denied that, saying it was "totally incorrect".

He also said that no venue had mentioned or asked for financial compensation for any income lost because of the box-office mix-up.

The cost of the independent review would be met from reserves that the Fringe Society had built up.

Charlie Wood, one of the directors of Underbelly, the leading Fringe venue, said that the review needed not only to be transparent, but involve all the "stakeholders" of the Fringe, including the Scottish Government and the City of Edinburgh Council.