Although the Fringe prides itself on defying the norm, Stephen Greer explains that playing it safe is the best way to avoid losing out.
This year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe slogan – “defying the norm since 1947” – might make for good marketing. But it hardly reflects the role of the world’s largest arts festival accurately. Far from supporting risk, the environment of the Fringe is increasingly one in which playing safe is the best way to avoid losing out.
The origin story to which the Fringe’s slogan refers is well rehearsed. In 1947, eight theatre groups turn up uninvited to perform at the Edinburgh International Festival. Though they’re not in the official programme, they perform anyway and are joined by larger numbers of independent performers in the following years. This leads to the formation of the Festival Fringe Society in 1958 as an organisation dedicated to supporting an “open-access arts event that accommodates anyone with a story to tell and a venue willing to host them”... Keep reading on The Conversation
This year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe slogan – “defying the norm since 1947” – might make for good marketing. But it hardly reflects the role of the world’s largest arts festival accurately. Far from supporting risk, the environment of the Fringe is increasingly one in which playing safe is the best way to avoid losing out.
The origin story to which the Fringe’s slogan refers is well rehearsed. In 1947, eight theatre groups turn up uninvited to perform at the Edinburgh International Festival. Though they’re not in the official programme, they perform anyway and are joined by larger numbers of independent performers in the following years. This leads to the formation of the Festival Fringe Society in 1958 as an organisation dedicated to supporting an “open-access arts event that accommodates anyone with a story to tell and a venue willing to host them”... Keep reading on The Conversation