While it will be at least a month before the final figures are in, festival director Nicholas McBryde said it had been "one of the best yet".
"It's been a glorious 10 days," Mr McBryde said yesterday.
"Looking around during the festival, without any doubt the numbers, enthusiasm, growing crowds and sold-out houses show it is only getting stronger.
"The Dunedin public has again got the idea of what the festival is all about. They've come out in their numbers and had a feast."
The only disappointment during the festival was the cancellation of Canadian violin troupe Barrage a week before the festival started.
It was the first time in the 10-year history of the Otago Festival of the Arts that it had to cancel an event because of poor ticket sales.
"I blinked," Mr McBryde said.
"But we just had to make the call. We'd sold only 900 tickets nation-wide and we needed 8000 to cut our losses. It could have left us $300,000 in debt.
"We're still looking at a big loss on it, as it is."
The Barrage national tour would have been the fourth time the festival had toured an international act after the Dunedin festival, following the Jacques Loussier Trio in 2000 and 2006 and the Soweto String Quartet in 2004.
Festival chairman Paul Dallimore said this year's festival "would break even, or go very close to breaking even".
"And that's a fantastic result," Mr Dallimore said at the Ballantine's Festival Club on Saturday night.
The next Otago Festival of the Arts is in 2010.
