Beyond Melbo
A National
Alana Rosso
Every Fringe Festival around Australia
shares many similarities and yet at the
same time can be quite different. The concept of the Fringe Festival is an artistic
forum which encourages performers to
showcase their theatrical, musical, dance,
comedic, cabaret or visual art work.
Currently in Australia we have the Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and
most recently, Perth Fringe Festivals.
Each of these run annually spread across
different times of the year.
The differences between Australian Fringe
Festivals are minimal – each showcase
a vast variety of new and existing talent,
every year bringing all sorts of laughs to
audiences. The longest running festival
nationally is the Adelaide Fringe festival,
which has been operating for around 54
years followed by the Melbourne Fringe
Festival, which has been running annually
for the past 32 years.
The key to the Melbourne Fringe Festival
is diversity – each act should represent
a different performance. The Melbourne
Fringe puts an emphasis on its independent arts program which develops every
act and performer each year before they
present it to public audiences.
They also boast their creative program
which supports all participating artists in
exploring new artistic and engaging ways
to perform. It is important to understand
the values that the Melbourne Fringe
champion – Integrity, creativity, collabora-
tion and participation – these are factors which the Festival strives to
achieve each year in order to
provide audiences with the
best show possible.
Selected
performances
in the Fringe Festival are
chosen to be showcased
at the Festival Hub for wider exposure. Again, the Melbourne Fringe is dedicated to
encouraging performers to pursue their career in the arts and
performing arts industry by offering them an opportunity to perform
on a cyclical basis at the festival.
Simultaneously it challenges acts to
self evaluate and improve on their performance every year. Their commitment
to emerging and established performers
is evident; in 2013 there were just over
3,680 artists who performed in a total of
316 shows across the Melbourne Fringe
Festival. It demonstrates the way in which
The Melbourne Fringe nurtures its performers in order to achieve the most successful festival.
Adelaide Fringe Festival last year reported that by the end of the festival there
was around $64.6 million in ticket sales,
a figure which has seen an astronomical
increase from 2011 when ticket sales accumulated to around $8 million overall.
The Adelaide Fringe similarly endorses
creating a productive forum for performing
arts, while also highlighting what the city
has to offer. Most festivals like to show-