Adelaide Fringe Festival

The Adelaide Fringe Festival is an arts festival held annually in the South Australian capital of Adelaide. The event is Australia's largest arts event and the second-largest fringe festival in the world. [http://www.adelaidefringe.com.au/Home.aspx Adelaide Fringe 2007 - Home page] , Accessed 17/1/06] Prior to the year 2007, the Adelaide Fringe was a biannual event, occurring in even numbered years to coincide with the Adelaide Festival of Arts. The 2008 Adelaide Fringe Festival was held from 22 February - 16 March. The opening night party was held from 6:00 pm - 2:30 am, with the main musical performances kicking off in Rymill Park from 8:30 pm.

The Adelaide Fringe is widely regarded as one of the best events of its kind in the world and is renowned for fresh ideas, risk, imagination, spontaneity and fun.Fact|date=February 2007 Compared to other fringe festivals, it is second in size only to the Edinburgh Fringe selling over 900,000 [http://www.adelaidefringe.com.au/News/NEW-SURVEY-HIGHLIGHTS-FRINGE-S.aspx Adelaide Fringe 2006 Summary] , Accessed 4/9/07] tickets in 2006 compared to Edinburgh's 1,700,000 [ [http://www.edfringe.com/story.html?id=2099&area_id=31 Edinburgh Fringe 2007 Summary] , Accessed 4/9/07] in 2007.

Events

To be part of the Adelaide Fringe Festival, all one needs to do is register by the cutoff date which changes of a yearly basis. The Adelaide Fringe does not actively seek out the events which form part of the Fringe Program and thus a vast variety of different performances can be seen. Typically the Adelaide Fringe, is dominated by comedy and visual arts performances, although music, cabaret, dance and theatre also have numerous performances. In fact it is not uncommon for one performance to contain a variety of different genres.

At the 2008 Fringe:
*There were 5470 scheduled performances of 543 shows in 281 different venues
*Over 3000 artists were scheduled to perform
*Comedy accounted for 22% of the programme, followed by Visual Arts with 20%.

Feel

Because of Adelaide's very strict street layout within a square mile, venues are close together forcing patrons to cross paths on the city streets. The city's surrounding parks provide venues outside of the established and converted venues within the city itself. With the Adelaide Festival and Adelaide Writers' Week all sharing the same spaces, there is significant opportunity for patrons to participate in events in all three festivals in those years they all run.

Past Events

The Adelaide Fringe began in 1960 as an alternative to the 'mainstream' Adelaide Festival of Arts. The latter was seen to offer limited opportunity for local and smaller-scale artists. The Adelaide Fringe is an open access event, allowing anyone with ideas and enthusiasm to register in the program, and so to showcase their arts to the public. [ [http://www.adelaidefringe.com.au/About/History.aspx Adelaide Fringe 2007 - History] , Accessed 17/1/06] For many years the two events were inextricably linked and together created an atmosphere of electric excitement across the city. From 2007 onwards, the Adelaide Fringe will stand alone as an annual event in its own right.

2006

Reflected in the iconic poster design of a single origami crane made from previous Fringe posters, 2006's Fringe was held with the theme of re:generation. Held between 24 February and 19 March 2006, the festival included a diverse program. The 2006 Adelaide Fringe retained its position as one of the biggest arts festivals in the world with over 500 events.

Future Dates

*2009: Friday 27 February – Saturday 21 March
*2010: Friday 19 February – Saturday 13 March
*2011: Friday 18 February – Saturday 12 March
*2012: Friday 24 February – Saturday 17 March
*2013:

References

ee also

* List of festivals in Australia
* Adelaide Writers' Week
* Adelaide Festival of Arts

External links

* [http://www.adelaidefringe.com.au/default.aspx Adelaide Fringe]