Minnesota Fringe Festival
The Minnesota Fringe Festival is a performing arts festival held in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, every summer, usually during the first two weeks in August. The eleven-day event, which features performing artists of many genres and disciplines, is one of many Fringe Festivals in North America. Minnesota Fringe is the largest nonjuried festival in the United States[1] and the third-largest Fringe festival in North America. In 2011, Minnesota Fringe ran August 4-14 and featured 167 shows with a total of 865 performances in multiple venues around the city and distributed 48,432 tickets over the eleven-day event. In 2007, attendance and box office revenue were adversely affected by the collapse of the I-35W bridge the day before the festival opened.
Fringe shows are 60 minutes or less and appear in an official venue supplied by the festival for five performances stretched out over the festival's eleven days. Venues vary widely, with capacities ranging from 55 to over 400, and available configurations include black-box, proscenium, thrust or arena stages. Past venues include Minneapolis Theatre Garage, Mixed-Blood Theate mainstage, Theatre de la Jeune Lune's side stage and the four stages at the University of Minnesota's Rarig Center for Performing Arts.[2] Normally, eleven shows will share a venue.
Performing companies that participate in the Fringe split a share of the ticket revenues with the festival and pay an application fee. Currently, the artists' share is 65 percent of the box office revenue.
The 2012 festival, scheduled for August 2-12, will mark the nineteenth annual festival. The current executive director is Robin C. Gillette, who came to the job after working as the marketing and community relations manager at Mixed Blood Theatre Company in Minneapolis.[3]
Minnesota Fringe Festival is a founding member of United States Association of Fringe Festivals (USAFF).[4]
Contents |
[edit] Features of the Minnesota Fringe
[edit] Non-Juried Entry
Minnesota Fringe Festival is nonjuried; that is, the performers and shows are not vetted by a panel of judges ahead of time. Companies that wish to perform submit applications and are drawn by lottery, a practice that replaced the festival's former method of "first come, first served" in 2004.
[edit] Performance Categories
The festival is open to all performing artists. Show genres typically include comedy (scripted and improv), drama, dance (classical, modern and ethnic), puppetry, musical theater, opera and shows for/by children and teens. Minnesota Fringe, like many fringe festivals, has proven to be an excellent launching point for new work.[5]
[edit] Accessibility
Each venue is wheelchair-accessible and the festival offers ASL-interpreted shows for the deaf and hard-of-hearing, as well as audio-described shows for the blind.[6]
[edit] "Bring Your Own Venue"
In the past, Minnesota Fringe has provided an option for companies to produce site-specific work outside the official venues. The Bring Your Own Venue (BYOV) option was only available for shows that could not normally fit into a traditional theater space. Past BYOV shows have been staged in places such as a clothing store dressing area, a swimming pool, an art gallery and a coffee shop. In 2006, 23 shows, a record number, performed in BYOV slots.[7]
[edit] Website
The Minnesota Fringe Festival Website operates year-round. All of the shows in the yearly festival are up for review by any audience member who registers on the site. Shows are rated on a scale of 0 to 5 stars along with a written review. Each show is assigned an overall star rating based on the average of all the reviews received. Minnesota Fringe also retains a staff of photographers who attend shows and return photographs for the festival's daily slide show. During the six-week 2011 festival period, the site received over a million pageviews and offered 3,829 audience reviews.
[edit] Statistics
Shows
2011: 167
2010: 169
2009: 162
2008: 156
2007: 162
2006: 163
Performances
2011: 865
2010: 876
2009: 843
2008: 808
2007: 874
2006: 867
Ticket Sales
2011: 48,432
2010: 50,256
2009: 46,217
2008: 40,926
2007: 37,752
2006: 44,692
Gross Box Office Revenue
2011: $362,599[8]
2010: $371,085
2009: $325,463
2008: $297,374
2007: $264,384
2006: $337,910
Total Artist Payout
2011: $243,792[9]
2010: $249,116
2009: $215,600
2008: $193,293
2007: $171,850
2006: $219,642[10]
[edit] References
- ^ Minneapolis Arts Facts; Minneapolis.org website; retrieved 28 December 2006
- ^ "Minnesota Fringe Festival"; KARE11 website; 7 July 2006; retrieved 3 January 2007
- ^ Combs, Marianne; "The Fringe from the inside"; Minnesota Public Radio website; 4 August 2006
- ^ USAFF website; "United States Association of Fringe Festivals"; USAFF website; 27 January 2012
- ^ "The Minnesota Fringe Festival and the Popularity of New Plays"; 2AMt blog, Max "Bunny" Sparber; 19 August 2010
- ^ "Accessible Fringe Festival Returns for Thirteenth Season"; Access Press; Volume 17, Number 7; 10 July 2006
- ^ Papatola, Dominic; "Wrinkle in the rules requires some fringers to get a place lift"; St. Paul Pioneer Press; 3 August 2006
- ^ Press Release: Minnesota Fringe ’11
- ^ 2011 Festival annual report; Minnesota Fringe Festival press release
- ^ press release: 2006 Festival final numbers; Minnesota Fringe Festival press release
[edit] External links
 |
Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Minnesota Fringe Festival |
- Minnesota Fringe Festival Website
- Fringey Awards - Online Video Awards for the Minnesota Fringe Festival
- Papatola, Dominic; "Gillette will lead next year's Fringe fest"; Saint Paul Pioneer Press; 12 August 2006
- Huyck, Ed; "Minnesota Fringe Festival"; Talkin' Broadway website; retrieved 3 January 2007
- Interview with Robin Gillette, 2009
- Minnesota Fringe Festival: A View From the Inside - A talk with Robin Gillette, November 18, 2010 at the Institute for Advanced Study at University of Minnesota
- Interviews by Peter Shea with performers at the 2011 festival
- Interviews by Peter Shea with performers at the 2010 festival
- Interviews by Peter Shea with performers at the 2009 festival
