Edmonton Fringe Festival looking for financial help to survive

Edmonton’s Fringe Festival is struggling to make ends meet, and organizers say they may have to make some difficult decisions due to financial constraints.

The show will go on this summer, though it’s unclear what it might look like.

“Right now, we are doing everything in our power to protect the things that matter most,” said Megan Dart, festival executive director.

On Monday, the Edmonton International Fringe Theatre Festival released a statement saying its expenses are skyrocketing, while funding is dropping. As a result, organizers say they are not being able to keep up with the cost of producing the event.

Organizers are calling on their steadfast Fringe community, Edmonton’s business community, and all those who love the arts to help them sustain operations. 

“This rapidly evolving challenge is threatening the very fabric of our Festival and others like it. Without immediate support, our Festival will be very different,” said Dart.

“The costs of building our festival site has almost doubled, our insurance has gone up by more than 45 per cent, our staffing costs to ensure safety out on site has gone up by 42 per cent, we are seeing huge increases in our utilities just to keep our lights on and our door open here at the Fringe Theatre Arts Barns and our funding simply isn’t keeping pace.”

Dart adds the festival has a major impact on Edmonton over its 11 days, as it features 1,600 festival artists each year, is helped by 1,000 volunteers, and contributes to the local economy.

“Canceling the 2020 Festival was a $3 million loss in revenue for our organization. While we have celebrated incredible successes in the regrowth of the Fringe Festival post-pandemic thanks to the ongoing support of our community and the businesses around us, the Festival is still recovering,” explained Dart.

“Right now, we are doing everything in our power to protect the things that matter most.”

In 2023, artists at Fringe Festival made over $1.2 million through ticket sales.

“Under the Fringe Festival model, 100 per cent of the ticket price goes back to the artists. Artists absolutely need to make a living, and we have raised our ticket prices in our post-pandemic return in an effort to support our artists,” explained Dart.

“I think that’s one of the foundational things about this festival [artists getting 100% of the ticket sales.] That the artists are there taking the risks, they are paying to participate in the festival, they are contributing their own work and in a free market Albertan kind of way, they are also getting 100 per cent of the ticket sales that they generate,” David Cheoros, a theatre director and playwright, added.

Cheoros has been involved with the festival since 1991, and says it helps many artists.

“This festival impacts and supports so many different artists and different artistic disciplines in so many different ways, that the ripples are huge, and they keep going. So having challenges that shrink it back in one way has ripples that I can’t begin to predict,” Cheoros said.

Edmonton’s festival isn’t the only one in this situation. Other events are also struggling with sustainable financial support, and might not be able to survive.

“It really hurts to have to think about what that might mean,” said Dart. “If every Fringe fan just gave 5 dollars a month every month, we would have enough to sustain Fringe. We ask you to consider joining our community so we can continue to Fringe long into the future.” 

Cheoros adds, “It’s super hard and I’m glad they’re being responsible about making sure that they are sustainable in the long-term, at the same time, it’s really going to hurt people. It’s going to hurt audiences because the great job of this festival is the sheer variety of amazing, weird, wonderful, and sometimes inexplicable stuff. And when you have to scale back, you scale back on that stuff.”