The weather has been miserable, the comedy has been just as depressing, but Edinburgh has got its mojo back.

After a decade in which the biggest arts festival in the world has been accused of becoming overblown, over-hyped, and most damagingly, to have disappeared up its own fundament, Edinburgh has rediscovered the buzz that made it great in the first place.

By next weekend, traditionally Edinburgh's busiest, 1m people are likely to have bought tickets for the Fringe festival, and the book, film and international festivals - the highest number ever.

And this against the backdrop of a collapse in the once-dominant comedy scene, with barely enough halfway original acts to make up a Perrier shortlist. The fallout has been far from funny, with some standups playing to their own echo. Even big names such as Simon Munnery, fresh from his own television series, have had to wring laughs from as few as 20 paying punters.

Johnny Vegas, the nearest thing to a presiding comic genius, crashed and burned after the first week, belly flopping half naked from the stage at a "celebrity barn dance" at four in the morning. He has rarely been sober on stage since.

The revival of the Edinburgh festival has been driven, instead, by a spectacular renaissance in theatre, for so long the Cinderella to comedy's swaggering Loadsamoney.

Tickets for the two biggest hits, Tiny Dynamite, and Gagarin Way, both at the Traverse theatre, are like gold dust, while the Festival of International Theatre, at the new Komedia St Stephens complex which has been carved out of a huge Presbyterian church, is according to some critics, "potentially the most exciting thing to have happened here for 20 years".

Takings on the Fringe are up a third on last year, while the book and film festivals are also up between a fifth and a quarter. Even the International Festival, for so long the older, embarrassing relative - which last year seemed completely to lose its marbles - has had a deathbed stirring. Its opera, classical music and dance programmes have been set alight by the great classical dancer, Mikhail Baryshnikov, and by stellar recitals by the young tenor Jonas Kaufmann and the mezzo soprano Petra Lang, as well as by the stunning, five hour production of Berlioz's The Trojans.

Most intriguing of all, however, is that the public seems much more eager to experiment. Across all four main festivals, there has been a marked trend towards "dumbing up".

A low budget documentary called The Natural History of the Chicken was the fastest to sell out in the film festival, filling up quicker than even the gala premieres of Enigma, Lucky Break, and Gabriel And Me, which had the added lure of sharing the same cinema with the likes of Kate Winslet, Alan Cumming, Billy Connolly and Saffron Burrows.

Two French films, Amelie, and Catherine Breillat's challenging A Ma Soeur (Fat Girl), have been the big audience hits of the festival, along with Atanarjuat The Fast Runner, the first movie made by Inuits about themselves.

"It's not at all what we expected," said Lisa Torrance, a festival spokeswoman. "Who would have thought that a film about chickens would be so popular, but it is. There's obviously a real hunger for something different out there."

There has been a similar story at the books festival, where the turnout for the populist authors, Wendy Holden and Tania Kindersley - who sell millions of copies between them - was disappointing in comparison to the numbers who came to hear the influential but little known Italian novelist Giorgio Pressburger.

Catherine Lockerbie, the director, said the same story had been repeated several times over the festival. "It's the writers and subjects which you would never have thought would have drawn a big crowd who did just that. I find it really heartening. Most evenings we have a Café Philosophique with open-ended panel discussions on subjects such as the future of culture and communications... we've really had to tell people to go home."

Paul Gudgin, the director of the Fringe, said this was the kind of year he had dreamt of. "There is no doubt, although there is still the busiest week to go, that we have a vintage year on our hands." He said the scheme offering two tickets for the price of one, which is backed by the Scottish Arts Council, gave the festival the best possible start at the opening weekend.

"I think it took people's fear away ... We are also seeing something very special happening in theatre, but don't ask me why. There isn't a magic formula. The Traverse has had an amazing festival, and I think that what has begun to happen at Komedia St Stephens is really exciting, the thing that the Fringe has been missing for a long, long time."

Mr Gudgin compared the buzz generated by the venue to the Flux musical festival of several years ago.

"That, too, took a little time for the public to realise what was happening. The critics have all really got behind St Stephens and the public are now discovering it for themselves. Like Flux, they could go from zero to audiences of 25,000 in a few years," he said.

Even so, the venue, which like the two other Komedia complexes, is operated on socialistic lines with companies sharing all the costs, is set to lose money. Komedia's co-director, David Lavender, said that they were trying to recapture the cooperative spirit of Edinburgh of old under the church's fresco of a burning bush. "People have been working without sleep for days to help make miracles happen here," he said.

Shows that have gained the public's approval:

Theatre
Gagarin Way: Former dishwasher Gregory Burke's funny first play. Soon to transfer to the National

Tiny Dynamite: Abi Morgan's beautiful and tragic story of how miracles can happen.

School For Fools: Brilliant piece of elegiac Russian absurdism at Komedia St Stephens.

Film

The Natural History Of The Chicken: Masterfully arch documentary by Mark Lewis, the Australian who made the Cane Toads.

Amelie: Jean-Pierre Jeunet's romantic comedy about a girl who wants to help people.

Cool And Crazy: The film they call the Norwegian Buena Vista Social Club has been a sensation in Scandinavia. Edinburgh has also taken this documentary about a choir of fishermen and farmers to its heart.

Books

Gore Vidal, the elder statesman of American letters has had people queuing round the block to hear him talk about Timothy McVeigh and the Opus Dei infiltration of the US Supreme Court.

Giorgio Pressburger, surprisingly big turnout to see the influential Italian author of the Snow And Guilt, a collection of short stories about love and guilt.

A L Kennedy has lit the place up with her acid wit in readings, lectures and debates.

Classical music

Jonas Kaufmann: the young tenor's recital of Schumann and Richard Strauss songs brought the Queen's Hall to its feet.

Petra Lang: critics have raved at the "power and consistency" of the young German mezzo soprano's singing.

The Trojans: five hour concert performance of Berlioz's rarely performed opera was compared to Sir Colin Davis's "legendary LSO rendition"

Comedy

Ross Noble: the best of the improvisers, is the hot tip for the Perrier.

Noble And Silver: not that funny, but brilliantly inventive comedy from two former art students.

Garth Marenghi's Netherhead: excellent character comedy based around Essex's answer to Stephen King

Earl Stevens: British stand-up pretends to be a Jewish American wisecracker with hilarious results.

The Treason Show: fast and furious sketches and songs