| Minnesota Fringe Festival |
Article Index for Minnesota |
Website Links For Minnesota |
Information AboutMinnesota Fringe Festival |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT MINNESOTA FRINGE FESTIVAL | |
| minneapolis, minnesota | |
| theatre festivals | |
| fringe festival | |
| summer festivals | |
| festivals in minnesota | |
|
The Minnesota Fringe Festival is a theatre and 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 many Fringe Festival s in North America . The Minneapolis Fringe is the largest non-juried festival in the United States Minneapolis Arts Facts ; Minneapolis.org website; retrieved 28 December 2006 and the third-largest Fringe Festival in North America. In 2005 alone, the Minneapolis Fringe featured 167 shows with a total of 855 performances in multiple venues around the city. Combs, Marianne; "The Fringe Festival Takes Center Stage" ; Minnesota Public Radio website; 4 August 2005 In 2006, the number of shows dropped to 163, but the number of performances rose to 867. The festival recently handed over ticketing duties to a third-party vendor, Uptown Tix ]] The typical Fringe show is less than an hour and appears in an official venue supplied by the festival for five performances stretched out over the eleven days of the Festival. The normal venue is a black-box space or proscenium stage that contains a small--fewer than 200-seats--house. Past venues include the Minneapolis Theatre Garage, The '''Mixed-Blood Theater''' mainstage, Theatre De La Jeune Lune 's side stage, and the three stages at the University Of Minnesota 's '''Rarig Center for Performing Arts'''. "Minnesota Fringe Festival" ; KARE11 website; 7 July 2006; retrieved 3 January 2007 Normally, four to five different shows will share a venue. Companies may elect to pay extra for venues with extra features, such as overhead rigging, extra performance time, projectors and larger houses. radio "Art Matters"]] Performing companies that participate in the Fringe split a share of the ticket revenues with the Festival office as well as paying a fee to enter the festival. Currently, the artists' take is 65%. This is lower than many other American and Canadian Fringe Festivals. For comparison, most of the Fringe Festivals in the Canadian Association of Fringe Festivals (CAFF) , stipulate that all artists receive 100% of ticket revenues. The New York Fringe Festival does not take a portion of the ticket receipts until the show grosses over $20,000. Hubbard, Susan; "The 'Fringe' Benefits of Taking Your Show on the Festival Circuit" -PerformInk Online, 2 February 2002 2006 marks the festival's thirteenth anniversary. Much of the recent success of the Minnesota Fringe has been attributed to the leadership of former Executive Director Leah Cooper, who stepped down from her post at the end of the 2006 festival. Cooper was replaced by '''Robin C. Gillette''', who came to the job after working as the Marketing and Community Relations Manager at Mixed Blood Theatre Company in Minneapolis.Combs, Marianne; "The Fringe from the inside" ; Minnesota Public Radio website; 4 August 2006 The 14th Minnesota Fringe Festival is scheduled for August 2-12, 2007.Kleiman, Jaime; "Gillette to Head Minnesota Fringe" ; Backstage.com website; 6 September 2006; retrieved 3 January 2007 FEATURES OF THE MINNESOTA FRINGE Non-Juried Entry The Minnesota Fringe Festival is non-juried; that is, the performers and shows are not vetted by a panel of judges ahead of time, as is the case in other American Fringes such as the New York Fringe Festival . Instead, companies that wish to perform submit applications and are drawn by lottery, a practice that recently replaced the Festival's former method of "first come, first serve." Performance Categories The festival is open to all performing artists. There are various subcategories of performance which are chosen by separate lotteries outside of the General Lottery. These include, but are not always limited to, Kids Fringe (which includes shows both for and by children), Teen Fringe (by and for teenagers), artists of color, artists with disabilities, national and international groups, longer shows (which run a half-hour longer than normal shows, and are available at a limited venue), and shows which require special rigging (due to technical constraints of the typical venue). The festival also includes a visual art component that has manifested itself in different ways over the years, often called "Visible Fringe." Accessibility The Minnesota Fringe is one of the most accessible Fringe festivals for those with disabilities. Each venue must be guaranteed to be wheechair accessible, and the festival has begun to offer ASL-interpreted shows and close-captioned shows for the deaf and hard-of-hearing, as well as audio-described shows for the blind. "Accessible Fringe Festival Returns for Thirteenth Season" ; Access Press; Volume 17, Number 7; 10 July 2006 "Bring Your Own Venue" The Minnesota Fringe also provides an option for companies to produce work in venues other than the official Fringe venues. The Bring Your Own Venue (BYOV) option is specifically provided for shows that could not normally fit into a theatre venue. 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 recent years, this option has become extremely popular with performing companies, and some have been accused of using BYOV as a way to circumvent the lottery process. In 2006, 23 shows, a record number, performed in BYOV slots.Papatola, Dominic; "Wrinkle in the rules requires some fringers to get a place lift" ; St. Paul Pioneer Press; 3 August 2006 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 1/2 star 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. The Fringe also retains a staff of photographers who attend shows and return photographs for the festival's daily slide show and a retinue of official Fringe bloggers, the "League of Extraordinary Fringers." During the 2006 festival, the site received 1.8 million hits and 8,250 registered users who wrote 1,916 reviews. STATISTICS Shows 2006: 163 2005: 168 Performances 2006: 867 2005: 855 2004: 800 Ticket Sales 2006: 44,692 2005: 44,626 2004: 44,189 Average Attendance per Performance 2006: 51.5 2005: 52.2 Gross Box Office Revenue 2006: $337,910 Total Artist Payout 2006: $219,642 press release: 2006 Festival final numbers ; Minnesota Fringe Festival press release EXTERNAL LINKS
REFERENCES |
|
|