Tickets are being snapped up for this year's Brighton Fringe Festival.

Bookings were thrown open to the general public on Friday and organisers reported a constant steam of calls to the box office and visits to the festival website.

The festival is well known for its obscure and off-the-wall performances, which regularly draw huge crowds.

This year's event features more than 700 shows at 200 venues across the city from May 2-25.

The Friends of the Fringe were given a week of priority bookings ahead of the public launch and so far almost 1,000 sales have been made through the website alone by Friday lunchtime, bringing in a total of £9,000.

Box Office manager Barny Darnell (crct) said: “It’s fantastic that tickets are going so quickly.

“The website box office has been redesigned and updated this year to make it easier for people to buy tickets, and it’s obviously working.”

The most popular event so far is an acoustic set by Brighton band The Levellers at the Parlure Spiegeltent on May 11, while other big sellers at the Spiegeltent are club night Guilty Pleasures and the Aviator Club cabaret.

Cabaret in general is seeing good sales with The Insect Circus and And the Devil May Drag You Under at St Andrew’s Church in Hove are proving popular, as is Bom-Banes the Musical at the Kemp Town cafe of the same name.

Even the most expensive show , which costs £50 per ticket, has had seven sales..

Bedroom Lullaby sees cabaret queen Lorraine Bowen singing a person to sleep in the comfort of their own bedroom, accompanied by her faithful lampshade.

Fringe City and Fringe Street will take over the heart of Brighton every weekend in May with a variety of outdoor theatre and carnival revelry.

Highlights include a Food Festival with demonstrations from top chefs including Aldo Zilli and Michael Bremner from Due South.

Among the other attractions include the Sundown Show bar which will stage cabaret and comedy shows and a Village Disco with themed nights.

The shark tank at Brighton Sea Life Centre will host Frying (crct) Nemo while other events will be held in some of the seafront beach huts and a renovated bus station.

Other performers featured at the fringe include soul legend Dennis Rollins and 4 Poofs And A Piano from the Jonathan Ross show.

For full listings, more information and to book tickets, visit www.brightonfestivalfringe.org.uk or call the box office on 01273 709709.