Edmonton International Fringe Festival

The Edmonton International Fringe Theatre Festival is an annual arts festival held every August in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Produced by the Fringe Theatre (Fringe Theatre Adventures or FTA), it is the oldest and largest fringe theatre festival in North America (based on ticket sales). The Edmonton Fringe is a founding member of the Canadian Association of Fringe Festivals.

Fringe Theatre is a charitable arts organization, Fringe Theatre brings community together through the power of storytelling. What makes Fringe special is that Fringe Artists receive 100% of their Festival ticket sales. Beyond this, Fringe supports Artists by giving them the tools and platform they need to put on their productions and reach audiences.

In 2014, 118,280 tickets were sold, up from 117,000 in 2013. The 2014 event had over 210 shows and 1,600 performances, with an estimated outdoor site attendance of 665,750. In 2016, the attendance rate reached a record-breaking high of 850,000+ attendees. In 2017 there was a record-breaking 130,000 tickets sold and $1.2 million in box office sales during the festival, which held performances from over 1,500 artists in 220 shows.

In 2023, 114,632 tickets were sold. The 2023 event had 161 indoor theatre shows and over 1,400 performances with an estimated outdoor site attendance of ~550,000 and $1.2 million in ticket sales directly into the pockets of Fringe Artists.

History
In 1982, Chinook Theatre's artistic director Brian Paisley received $50,000 from Edmonton's Summerfest to put together "A Fringe Theatre Event" in Edmonton's Old Strathcona District. Inspired by the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Scotland, the Edmonton Fringe (the first in North America) offered 200 live performances in five theatre venues. The 2020 Edmonton International Fringe Festival (scheduled for August 13 to 23, 2020) was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the only time the festival has been cancelled since its inception.

2021 marked the 40th anniversary of the Edmonton International Fringe Theatre Festival and also the return of the Festival in a scaled-down capacity in order to meet the arts community where they were at amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Venues
The festival itself takes place in Old Strathcona which has a number of permanent theatres (including the Westbury Theatre, the Backstage Theatre, and Studio Theatre in the Fringe Theatre Arts Barns, the Walterdale Playhouse, the Varscona Theatre, the Roxy on 124th, and the Princess Theatre) and a number of other venues which are converted by FTA or independent artists into temporary theatre venues. During the festival, the streets and alleys of the neighbourhood are also filled with street performers and masked or costumed actors promoting their plays.

Unlike the Edinburgh Festivals, where artists are responsible for finding and running their own venues, the Edmonton Fringe implements a system in which for a relatively low application fee, the festival provides artists with a venue, a set number of performances, two technicians, and front-of-house and ticketing services and general festival marketing. Artists may also arrange for their own performance space independently as a "Bring Your Own Venue" or BYOV, similar to the Edinburgh Fringe model.

Performers
Admittance for performers to the festival is determined by application to a lottery held each November. The emphasis is on theatre, but performances can and do feature almost every form of art and entertainment. In addition to the hundreds of national and international artists who travel from around the world to bring their shows to the Edmonton Fringe, there are also hundreds of local performers who participate each year. Many of the local performers have been with the festival since the early years. Performers such as Ken Brown, local magician Ron Pearson, Rapid Fire Theatre, Die-Nasty, Jan Randall Teatro la Quindicina, Darrin Hagen and Kevin Hendricks of Guys in Disguise, Panties Productions, Mump and Smoot, The Wombats, Ribbit Productions, The Dan Show, Nikolai, Ryan Stock of Insane Entertainment, Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie and Tim Waterson have appeared at the festival regularly.

Support for Queer Artists
For Edmonton queer theatre artists, Fringe is a chance to tell stories they want to tell and to share them with audiences that are willing and interested to listen. It is a place where queer people can feel comfortable and free to be themselves.