Other Fringes

[Mobbd]

So the Edinburgh Fringe is bloated and expensive and elitist. And all those bloody hills.

These are true things, though I'd temper/defend some of those claims myself.

Richard Herring last year gave a good and nuanced perspective on the problem.

Happily, there are loads of other fringes (fringe festivals / festival fringes) in the UK and internationally.

What do people think of them? What has been your experience of other fringes as a punter or even as a performer/helper? What did you see and do there? Which fringes represent true creative underdoggery and which ones are just mahoosive badly-organised cash-ins? FRINGE!

Brighton Fringe
Scarborough Fringe
Camden Fringe
Scranton Fringe
The Lambeth Fringe
Tunbridge Wells Fringe
Watford Fringe
Greater Manchester Fringe
San Diego International Fringe
Harrisburg Fringe
Tampa International Fringe
Montreal Fringe
Anywhere Fringe (Brisbane)
Sydney Fringe
Fringe Italia Off (Milan, I think)
Philadelphia Fringe

Others presumably.

[DrGreggles]

So the Edinburgh Fringe is bloated and expensive and elitist. And all those bloody hills.

All true.
Annoyingly probably also my favourite city in the UK.

[lauraxsynthesis]

I've seen events listings for Brighton Fringe in the past and it's looked great. And it's a fun place to visit anyway

[Theoretical Dentist]

The only one I have any experience of is the Brighton Fringe. I live in Brighton so not sure how much of a problem travel and accommodation is during the Festival/Fringe – I gather that's the main reason Edinburgh might be seen as expensive and elitist, for visitors at least. I don't get the impression accommodation in Brighton gets completely swamped (with the possible exception of during the Great Escpae, a separate music festival that takes place for a few days during the Brighton Festival) but I may be wrong about that and it's probably more expensive than at other times, although maybe not as bad as the height of summer. We do have bloody hills here too, but most of the comedy venues are in reasonably flat areas.

In general (not just for comedy) I really like the fringe, there's a lot more variety in events than in the main festival, everything's much cheaper and a lot of things are free (the main festival has some free things but the oens that charge mostly seem pretty bad value). Some of the fringe events are things that happen year-round anyway but are promoted as part of the fringe when they take place during the festival. That's OK I guess, and being in the fringe publicity helps find things that I might otherwise miss. The fringe has stopped producing printed programmes which doesn't help with exposure, although there are so many events that the printed programme was pretty hard to use – having stuff online makes more sense really, but in practice I spend less time browsing the programme.

For comedy, the fringe is really where it's at – there's very little comedy in the main festival programme, maybe a little bit more when the guest director is a comedian (the main festival has a different guest director each year and the programming reflects their interests to some extent). I don't know a great deal about the live comedy scene but given the festival's position in the calendar (May, with the fringe extending into June) I imagine comedians who are also going to Edinburgh often use it for work-in-progress versions of their Edinburgh shows.

I've been to some comedy events in past fringes, generally because the description looks interesting rather than because I know anything about the comedians, and they've been all right but nothing stands out enough for me to remember it well or highlight it here. Everything I've been to has been in small temporary venues with very small audiences, but I imagine there are some bigger crowds for better-known comedians and/or in more prime time slots.

Here's the fringe comedy programme for this year. I haven't looked at it in depth yet. If anyone who knows more about live comedy than me has any recommendations I'd be interested to hear, although please don't put too much effort into it purely on my behalf, since I suspect I'm unlikely to go to much if anything this year.

[Mobbd]

The only one I have any experience of is the Brighton Fringe

Thanks for the brilliant info.

I think Brighton is where Go Faster Stripe does a lot of festival records of niche standup. Every been to one of those shows?

[Theoretical Dentist]

I think Brighton is where Go Faster Stripe does a lot of festival records of niche standup. Every been to one of those shows?

I don't think so – of the comedy shows I've been to (which isn't that many) I don't remember ever being told they were being recorded, and they've been in small venues where it would be noticeable even if they didn't tell you.

[Theoretical Dentist]

One other point with the Brighton Fringe, although I suspect it's common to the whole idea of fringe festivals, is that venue accessibility is usually pretty bad. Comedy shows are often in small venues like pub function rooms which are very often up or down stairs. It's certainly a general probllem with Brighton venues (and probably elsewhere) that the places that are free or cheap to hire, so where small/obscure/interesting things happen, are usually badly accessible.

On the Brighton Fringe website at the moment there are 307 comedy events listed, but if you restrict it to wheelchair-accessible venues there are only 50, and if you want an accessible toilet too it drops to 20. The average price of the accessible events is higher too, probably connected to being in bigger venues.

It's pretty crap but unfortunately probably systemically connected, that being more accessible in terms of what gets put on results in things being less physically accessible.

[Small Man Big Horse]

I've seen a fair few shows at the Camden Fringe, for comedy given the timing it tends to be for acts who can't afford to go to Edinburgh and are putting on their first or second shows, and the plays are all in small spaces and while I've seen the odd good thing the quality has been patchy.

[flotemysost]

One other point with the Brighton Fringe, although I suspect it's common to the whole idea of fringe festivals, is that venue accessibility is usually pretty bad. Comedy shows are often in small venues like pub function rooms which are very often up or down stairs. It's certainly a general probllem with Brighton venues (and probably elsewhere) that the places that are free or cheap to hire, so where small/obscure/interesting things happen, are usually badly accessible.

Definitely seems to be an issue with "small/pub venue" places in general, even when the stage is a decent size/properly specced (rather than just a mic stand in a corner) it's usually not wheelchair accessible - off the top of my head I can only think of a handful of London venues I've seen comedy/theatre at recently where the performance area wasn't up/down stairs.

I've seen a fair few shows at the Camden Fringe, for comedy given the timing it tends to be for acts who can't afford to go to Edinburgh and are putting on their first or second shows, and the plays are all in small spaces and while I've seen the odd good thing the quality has been patchy.

Went to a couple of shows at last year's Camden Fringe (the acts I saw were mates of mine rather than shows I'd specifically sought out, but I enjoyed checking out some new-to-me venues, and the general festival-y buzz).