So with a triumphant last day, the curtain finally falls on Underground Venues 2010. It’s been our biggest year to date with 60 different shows and events, brought to the people in 200+ performances.

We’ve had everything from Shakespeare on pedal bike to jesters, improv, elctro-pop and magic. It has been great to see so many new and exciting acts join our regulars to present the finest theatre, music, comedy, dance and family events at the ever-growing Buxton Fringe.

And as the number crunching begins, we can proudly reveal that ticket sales are up again, for the fourth year running, with over 3,900 sold overall. It’s great to see that word is spreading and the growth in exciting talent from the North West and further afield is attracting more and more people to our subterrrenean spaces.

We’re also very proud to see our fantastic artists being honoured in one of our best Fringe-award hauls to date. Underground acts this year in fact took all of the awards on offer for both theatre and comedy (adult categories). The Clock Master took Best New Writing (for Louisa Ashton), Gerry Howell took Best Comedy Performer for his role in The Fantastic Reality Of Frederick Goodge, How To Survive A Zombie Apocalypse was awarded Best Comedy Show and Tales From The Black Jack (performed by Alex Moran, directed by Graham Easterlow) was especially recognised with both the Best Production and Best Actor awards.

Underground continued its reputation for the home of comedy at the Fringe with every single comedy nomination going to Underground acts. The large majority of nominations for Best Production, Best Actor and Best New Writing also went to this year’s particularly strong theatre line-up. There were also mentions for Jake Thackray Rides Again, High Jinx, Spiltmilk Say Dance and  The World’s Greatest Walking Tour of  Buxton, which all also picked up nominations at Sunday’s award ceremony at The Dome.

This year also saw an explosion of coverage of Underground Venues in the media. Fringe Guru and Fringe Review – both professional denizens of the Edinburgh Fringe – devoted a large amount of coverage to Underground’s 2010 programme. You can read Fringe Review’s interviews with Underground acts here while Fringe Guru’s expert reviews from his visit Underground are here. Philip Radcliffe from Manchester Evening News also wrote this lovely review of Tales From The Black Jack for City Life. As always, Buxton Fringe reviewed all shows and you can read their coverage here.

So what happens now? Well for a good 22 of our acts, the mighty behemoth of the Edinburgh Fringe beckons. Check out who’s up there in this past blog post.

For the rest of us, a well earned rest and then planning for the already much-anticipated 2011 Buxton Fringe!

Watch this space…

(Well okay, go away for a bit, then come back and watch it.)