William Burdett-Coutts, artistic director of Assembly Theatre Highlight: "Assembly's programme, which was wonderful. I had a great time in terms of the quality of what we had on, particularly with shows like Traces, which was a huge hit."

Lowlight: "I think the disappointment was the poor audience for large-scale shows. There was also a definite lack of Americans in Edinburgh and, I think, a definite lack of visitors to the city overall. I think that we were surviving on the local audience more than the visitor audience and I think Edinburgh has a job to do selling itself outside. Most promoters I've spoken to have had a very hard Festival. I think it's the collective job of everyone working on the Festival to work together to make people come to the city, but particularly the Fringe and the council and the key venues on the Fringe."

Agenda for change: "The real issue the Festival faces is actually keeping up the audience for serious professional theatre - I think we have to find ways of funding it. At the end of the day the commercial end of the Festival will survive. But at the point where the Fringe can't sustain good, mid to large-scale professional theatre it becomes a poorer place because all you'll have is a lot of comedy and a lot of one-man shows. And that's not what makes the Festival exciting. You will not see things like Truth In Translation which had 18 people in the cast."

Katrina Brown, curator of the Edinburgh International Festival's visual art strand, Jardins Publics Highlight? "We did a community tea party in Chessel's Court with Apolonjia Sustersic, one of the three artists we commissioned for Jardins Publics. There were local residents there and people who had come to see the exhibition and we had them all eating scones. It was about Edinburgh but it was also about what art can do to bring people together and encourage conversation. It was beautiful."

Lowlight? "Finding out just how hard it is getting around the city. Taxi drivers kept telling me it was worse than it's ever been and the amount of you time you had to allow just to go from one side of town to the other makes the city feel quite difficult, which is a problem."

Agenda for change? "I think we need to be more interested in the rest of the world and less interested in ourselves. That would be reflected in more artists and more companies being brought from elsewhere and for there to be more opportunities for Scottish artists and companies to work with them and develop relationships that could be long-term rather than just one-offs. It's great to see the National Theatre of Scotland doing such a big production for the Festival, for instance, but it would be nice in years to come to see that having an international element as part of it."

Tommy Shephard, director of The Stand Comedy Club Highlight? "The Fringe consolidating itself on the south side of Edinburgh, moving away from the north side of Princes Street and leaving us as one of the few venues on this side of town. That, combined with the fact that we've been here so long has given us the air of a sort of oasis. It doesn't feel as frenetic as it might if we were on the High Street or up at Teviot. Yet our numbers are up, so people have still managed to find us. It all felt ridiculously easy this year."

Lowlight? "The Ricky Gervais show on the Castle Esplanade. It's disturbing that Fringe tickets have now reached £37.50. I didn't go - why would I want to look at somebody from half a mile away? I think the scale was vulgar and it was also entirely antipathetic to stand-up comedy. It was antipathetic to most things apart from spectacular marching bands, which is what that venue was designed for."

Agenda for change? "I think the Fringe and those who support it ought to consider whether this 100% laissez faire approach is sustainable in the long term. Allowing everyone to come here and saying it will find its own level now looks like ridiculous utopian idealism and doesn't take account of the fact that we live in a vicious commercial market in light entertainment. There's a need to rethink and redefine what we mean by the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and what the characteristics of a Fringe performance are. Some of that will involve quality control in terms of originality and innovation. I'd like to see Fringe directors be a bit more hands-on in the programming side of things. How can you be the director of the world's biggest arts festival and say you're not concerned with the content?"

Jonathan Mills, director of the Edinburgh International Festival Highlight? "The overwhelming number of people who have come up to me and said that they now understand what the journey was that we were encouraging them to go on. As a result they had gone off and bought tickets for other parts of what they perceived to be that journey. So people who had gone to L'Orfeo decided to buy tickets for Poppea; people who went to The Bacchae then bought tickets for Trisha Brown or Orpheus X, and so forth. I think there's nothing worse than trying to shove ideas down people's throat. They're there for people to discover."

Lowlight? "The real disappointment is that, having had 11 months and one week of our lives obsessed with the Festival, we don't like saying goodbye to it. There's a natural downer afterwards. Tomorrow, I'm deliberately busying myself with next year. I'm not going on holiday, I'm jumping straight into the next Edinburgh International Festival."

Agenda for change? "I'll put it in a positive light - we were able to use the Usher Hall this year even though it was a building site a month ago which is a great tribute to its staff. But the fact that Edinburgh's wonderful venues are being constantly improved and upgraded while managing to keep the Festival alive is a tribute and a challenge."

Peter Irvine, director of Unique Events Highlight? "Being on the judging panel of the EIF Fringe Award, which enabled me for the first time in years to do the Fringe in the way a lot of people do it, especially visitors. I was just going from one venue to another, seeing about seven shows in about 36 hours. What I saw was that the Fringe is alive and well and packed with people and it was good to be reminded of that."

Lowlight? "I think we have to be careful that we don't get into too many beer-driven things. T in the Park is a beer-driven thing and I think it would be a pity if the Fringe was. I've been to the Spiegel Garden two or three times: you have to queue to get in and the place is absolutely mobbed, but with people drinking instead of seeing shows. That's great for the people who have that licence, but we have to remember that the Festival is about the arts."

Agenda for change? "I'm on the board of the Edinburgh International Film Festival and I've been very keen to separate it from the other festivals, which has now happened. I don't think the film festival benefits from being on in August. I think there's too much on. There are too many tickets now and a lot of them are expensive and taking the film festival out of that and letting it breath on its own in June is good for it."

Faith Liddell, head of Festivals Edinburgh Highlight? "Because I'm responsible for the joint strategic direction and collaborative working of all the festivals, my highlight has been experiencing my new role and the pride and thrill of being connected to those festivals. Also seeing the resilience and ongoing strength of the festivals - we have four new directors this year and there were potential risks attached to that. Actually what's happened is that all the existing strengths those festivals have has been enhanced by this injection of new enthusiasm and an increasingly collaborative attitude."

Lowlight? "Some of the media coverage, for example the Artworks Scotland programme Ten Things I Hate About The Edinburgh Festival. Instead we should be talking about the 100 things people love about it. And in general terms I think our profile within the UK media is not as high as it might be, considering the importance of this event culturally, socially and politically. I would really like a wider profile in the UK media."

Agenda for change? "We have this astonishing event. It's the largest cultural phenomenon in the world and we're simply not making its presence felt as it should be both in the city and in the wider world. So marketing Edinburgh's festivals nationally and internationally, and promoting Edinburgh as the world's leading festival city is something I'd like to look at. In the international market, we simply don't have the sort of profile that an event like this deserves. There are also issues such as accommodation and transport to look at too because they define audience experience and artist experience. We need to ensure that they are of the best possible quality and that people are getting what they need, or even beyond what they need or expect." Why the new culture minister prefers Black Watch to The Bacchae

INTERVIEW: LINDA FABIANI TALKS TO BARRY DIDCOCK THE Edinburgh International Festival closes tonight with a concert of American music - Gershwin, Bernstein, Copland all the favourites - and the traditional display of pyrotechnics from the castle rock. There will be starbursts, rockets, screamers and that startlingly white waterfall thing that spills down the ramparts like froth from some magnesium-based champagne.

Whether the Scottish Chamber Orchestra's Fireworks Concert is an event of genuine artistic substance or just a lot of noise and smoke depends on your point of view. You'll find proponents for both sides of that particular argument. Sitting in her office four days prior to the concert, it's tempting to apply the same question to the woman who wields ultimate power over the orchestra's purse strings and, indeed, over all of the arts in Scotland: culture minister and Central Scotland MSP Linda Fabiani.

Will her tenure bring about concrete cultural achievements which are lauded by all, or will it simply bring empty gestures that burn brightly and fade as quickly? What will it be: depth - or fizz?

So far, the signs are good. The 50-year-old Glaswegian is personable, interested and interesting. She has other governmental duties besides the arts, of course - she is also minister for Europe and external affairs - but it seems clear she intends to engage thoroughly with her cultural brief. Furthermore it seems her leanings and sympathies are more in tune with Scotland's arts community than was perhaps the case with her predecessor, Patricia Ferguson.

She has certainly been busy. Just days after taking office she turned up to the launch of the Fringe programme, where she made a confident, if brief, speech. She attended the opening of the National Library of Scotland's John Murray Archive as "support act" to Michael Palin, a hero of hers. At the opening of the National Museum of Scotland's Fired With Passion exhibition of Pablo Picasso's ceramic works, she was thrilled to meet a man who had known the artist. In July, she was central to the plan to celebrate the opening of parliament with a performance of the National Theatre of Scotland's acclaimed play Black Watch. A neat piece of political opportunism to be sure. But, as the first minister himself observed, nobody could deny it had been the cultural event of the previous 12 months.

In August, Fabiani took in the festivals. She loved the Japanese drummers she saw on the Fringe but was a little disappointed with The Bacchae. "I felt unsatisfied at the end," she says. "It felt unfinished for me." She thought Alan Cumming was wonderful, though.

Best of all, however, was hearing 24-year-old Gustavo Dudamel conduct the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela, a group consisting largely of underprivileged teenagers whose route into music came via an arts outreach project called El Sistema.

"I wasn't prepared for the effect they would have on me and I can't quite figure out why it was. I mean, I'm used to going to see orchestras, but there was something about it, a power within that performance that really, really got to me. I found it quite upsetting."

She wasn't the only one. "When I looked around there were people with tears rolling down their faces, there were people with sheer joy in their faces and I think it's probably the first time I've been to a performance where there was a standing ovation at the end of the first half."

She was lucky enough to meet Dudamel afterwards, introduced to him by Richard Holloway, the former Bishop of Edinburgh and head of the Scottish Arts Council, who plans to introduce a version of El Sistema to Scotland.

"He was someone from whom goodness and decency shone," she says. "Every so often in life you meet people like that."

We are talking in Fabiani's office in the Scottish Executive building at Victoria Quay in Leith. Windows run the length of the large room and today, with the sun shining, the view is stunning. You can see the castle, the clock tower of the Balmoral Hotel and various other steeples and spires. They are foregrounded by reminders of Edinburgh's more recent industrial past: the warehouses on Commercial Street and the former business premises which now house Michelin-starred restaurants and interior design shops.

On the grey walls are a series of prints though none, I note, is by Jack Vettriano, who Fabiani reportedly intends to tap up for a lend or two. She rolls her eyes when I mention the painter. That is a story that got a little out of hand, she says.

"I'm very much a fan of Jack Vettriano. I just like his stuff. I want this office to be used to some degree as a showcase for contemporary Scottish art, whether it's hanging on the walls or sculptural pieces.

"It was my intention to get in touch with Mr Vettriano and ask him if he would do me the honour of lending me a piece of his work to go into my office. That's now been circumvented by the newspaper reports and I feel very, very rude. I've tried to make it better and I'm hoping to be able to speak to him quite soon and say I'm sorry the first he's seen of this has been in the papers."

Fabiani says there is also the "potential" to borrow from the national collection, though she doesn't see herself trotting round the National Gallery of Scotland saying: "I'll have the Botticelli and the Velazquez for the office and the Hirst for the loo."

"What I am saying is: what do you have in storage that would be quite nice to show for a while? If there isn't space in the gallery, let's show it here."

Neither does she have a particular preoccupation with artists such as Richard Demarco and Eduardo Paolozzi, who share her Scots-Italian heritage. "I think of myself as Scots-Italian and they're the same, but the Scots bit comes first."

If post-devolution Scotland has a crowning cultural achievement it is the setting up of the National Theatre of Scotland. So far it has been a resounding success and, while Fabiani can claim no credit for that, she has been quick to recognise its strengths and its potential. So too has her boss, Alex Salmond, who will be joining Black Watch at some point on its upcoming US tour.

The last time we met, she hadn't yet seen Black Watch. She has now. What did she think?

She loved it. It was, she says, one of the three most affecting pieces of theatre she has ever witnessed. The others were 7:84's The Cheviot, The Stag And The Black Black Oil - a Damascene moment for the then-schoolgirl. "I remember just being stunned by it. I never forgot it," she says. The other was a production of The House Of Bernarda Alba by the Spanish playwright Federico Garcia Lorca. "Black Watch was in that league," she says.

So much for the good stuff. Hanging over Fabiani's head and taking up a considerable amount of room in her in-tray is the draft culture bill, a piece of legislation proposed by the previous administration and roundly slated by most in the arts community.

The complaints are two-fold. Firstly, that what is in the draft bill is a greatly watered-down version of the proposals made by the Cultural Commission, the body given the task of investigating Scotland's cultural needs. Secondly, and perhaps more worryingly, that the terms of the draft bill could give government a say in artistic content. That would amount to censorship.

In the dead time between the May election and the announcement of the SNP administration's legislative programme - scheduled for this Tuesday - there has been much discussion about the bill and about Creative Scotland, the body to be formed by merging Scottish Screen and the Scottish Arts Council. Some think the bill will be changed dramatically, some think it may even be scrapped. So, is there going to be a culture bill at all?

"Yes, definitely," says Fabiani. "I'm working on it now and there'll be a statement on Tuesday by the first minister about his legislative programme and where things will be timed. I've already put it on record that there are elements of the draft culture bill I found difficult."

She is referring to the apparent erosion of the arm's-length principle which has previously been a given where government and the arts are concerned. For example, the draft culture bill floated the idea the Executive could give "direction" to Creative Scotland.

The strength of opposition to all this became obvious when the Executive published the responses to the draft bill it had received from Scotland's arts organisations.

She says she can see the logic in having Creative Scotland as one body, but appreciates the respective concerns the two organisations have about the merger. "There are great people there and they should be, as far as possible, left to achieve. And that's what I want to do." But, she adds: "I want to make sure the balance is right. I want things to be streamlined and strategic."

Two other items in Fabiani's in-tray are the Edinburgh Festival Expo Fund, and a scheme to offer financial help to artists.

Fabiani accepts that a scheme offering tax breaks based on the Irish model can't be implemented in Scotland - at least not without the agreement of the man she calls "Mr Brown" - but she hopes other ways can be found to incentivise and promote the arts community.

"I'm currently looking at alternatives that would enable us to give the encouragement I think would give a boost to the arts and indeed the economy."

The Edinburgh Festival Expo Fund, meanwhile, will be funded to the tune of £2 million annually and its aim will be to choose one or more Scottish or Scottish-originated shows from those appearing at the Edinburgh festival and tour them internationally.

"I want the Expo Fund to be ready to use next year," she says. "Again, I'm looking at the criteria. I want it to be a fund that will stimulate and then help Scottish artists, though I'm looking very carefully at how we define that." Defining an artist, she admits, is a "sticky" process.

But while Fabiani is happy to allay the fears of the artistic community over the draft culture bill, she is equally clear culture does have a part to play as an economic driver.

"When you look at the promotion of Scotland and what we want to do in terms of benefits, culture is very much related to the economy and I don't think we've ever made enough of that link," she argues. "That's not to say every kind of art or culture should have an economic end to it because you have to take risks with art. But there is an ecomomic link there we haven't fully tapped into."

Linda Fabiani has a very busy few months ahead and she may be seeing less of her Strathaven home than she would like, making do instead with the flat she keeps in Edinburgh. As well as the daily work in that Victoria Quay office there are the parliamentary duties and, after all that's done, the evening events incumbent upon her position - the dinners, the corporate receptions.

It's all part of the job, though. In fact, she says, she is keen to learn more about the role of business in the arts. "I want to learn more about how they see their role and what they do and how we can make that connection between government and private sponsorship of the arts," she says.

True enough, corporate clients have a significant role to play both in sponsorship and in acquisition; indeed it's their patronage which keeps many of Scotland's selling galleries solvent. Step inside an Edinburgh law firm or fund management company and you'll see offices draped with paintings by modern Scottish artists such as Barbara Rae, John Houston and Elizabeth Blackadder. I'm sure there's probably a Vettriano or two as well.

By now Fabiani's press minder is tapping her watch, which means the interview is almost over. There is time for a photograph, though, and for her to show me the henna tattoo she had done on her right hand a fortnight previously and which doesn't seem to want to wash off. It makes me think she might be the hippy Rosie Kane.

There's time, too, for me to ask her what she is reading at the moment. "I'm reading the Bible," she says, hooting with laughter, "because on holiday I read The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins and I got it into my head I wanted to to read it again. I'm only at Deutoronomy." She also has Michael Palin's Monty Python diaries on the go and - ouch! - Jimmy Young's autobiogaphy. It belongs to a friend, she says. It's really interesting, she insists.

In the lift down, meanwhile, she confides she loves Enric Miralles's parliament building but not his Milanese widow, the formidable Benedetta Tagliabue. Perhaps it's an Italian thing.

And, for the record, she will be at the Fireworks Concert tonight. She likes Gershwin and is keen to see the festival-closing spectacle for herself.

Will she still be there when the noise and the smoke have cleared? Probably. She seems, so far at least, to be a person of genuine substance. She has depth, I think, as well as fizz.