It’s officially festival season in Montreal, and next up is the annual Fringe Fest (properly named le Festival St-Ambroise Fringe de Montréal), starting this Thursday and running until Sunday the 22nd.
As usual, there will be a number of events taking place in public spaces, mostly at Parc des Amériques, corner St-Laurent & Rachel. I’ll be posting each evening with the next day’s free events for you to take in. This year’s selection includes a number of indie-music shows put on by Pop Montreal, a couple of craft sales, the opening and closing parties, and other oddities.
Be sure to check in tomorrow evening for the Fringe’s opening day events.
4 comments
I’ve already posted how I feel about the Fringe poster.
Yeah. I gotta admit I’m not a fan.
I agree with Shawn and Julie: this ‘theme’ sends a poor message to the city. I saw an elderly volunteer wearing a shirt with this logo at the Fringe press conference — she looked uncomfortable and I don’t blame her. The Fringe is supposed to be about inclusion and community. How many tourists are going to give this event a pass because of the poster alone? How many parents are going to think twice about bringing their kids to see a youth-oriented show? The frat boy mentality that permeates the Fringe administration has bubbled up a bit too much with this one.
“Fringe for Free”? I was certain you were going to talk
about volunteering. Work an hour (sometimes less, depending
on the task and the need) and get a Fringe Buck. Four will
get you into any show. Plus, many shows have a performance
where volunteers can get in free. I don’t know the status
this year, but one venue has traditionally needed a fire
marshall, which has meant someone gets “paid” to watch a show.
There are lots of things for volunteers to do, and it gives
an insider’s view. They want the shifts booked up early, but
they were looking for people for various things the other day.
The Beer Tent went up on Wednesday, but for those looking ahead
to next year, it will all have to come down the Monday after
the Fringe.
One can also find someone going to one of those 2for1 shows and
talk them into the spare ticket.
I’ve gotten a few comps over the years from people trying to lure
me in, but I know I’ve also seen shows twice because I was a good
audience and they wanted me back, so I’ve seen the shows free
the second time.
Sadly, it seems like fewer and fewer of the troupes are going for
less than the $9 maximum ticket price (now boosted by the $2 service
charge), but a close look may reveal some of them. There is an actual
OFF show that is free, “Hanging by a Branch”. Find the five dollar
shows, and they are close to free.
But the thing is, the peripheral stuff turns the Fringe Festival into
a mere festival. Yes, it brings in a different audience that will
buy beer that helps to pay for the festival, but to focus on the
free shows is to ignore the point of the Fringe, where independent
artists subcontract space from the Fringe and put on their show. They
are paying for their space, and the technical help, and they lose money
if they can’t sell seats. Adding all the kitchen sink stuff can
dwarf those real shows. Yet without those shows, the Fringe has no
purpose.
Even the OFF shows can be a distraction. I missed two dance shows
last year because they were way over there, and the travel time
was better used to see shows. I won’t be going to the Piss in the Pool
show this year, since it eats two hours of prime Fringe time.
The real shows are non-juried, while the free shows are selected, which
is another way to get away from the notion of a Fringe. Many of
the things happening happen other times too. Does having them at
the Fringe actually do that much to lure people to the real shows,
or do they just boost attendance to make the overall festival look
bigger?
The real shows, the troupes have to do their own promotion, other
than what’s in the program. The free shows produced by the Fringe,
the Fringe is already promoting them. Most articles I’ve seen so
far this year devote time to those free shows, jumping the way
the press releases tell them.
That poster people don’t like, that’s a sign/symptom of this. Back in
2000, one right wing group took the federal government to task for
giving the Montreal Fringe $10,000. They thought some of the titles
were vulgar, and didn’t like the idea of homosexual-themed shows. But
at least it was artists who were making that artistic decision.
Now, instead of raw and zany promotion to get people to the actual
Fringe shows, it gets Disneyfied. “Hey we’re hip, we’re edgy” and as
the shows get mainstreamed (not because the Fringe is selecting, but
because the artists seem less interested in the promotion needed
to get an audience into a less mainstream show) the Fringe takes
on that personna.
So have a controlled Drag Race rather than a Fringe show you pay
for that might go in that direction. Have free music rather than
the “Mayan Time Reversal” last year where improvising musicians
rented their space and put on a show. You can do anything with
the space once you win the space, so you can actually put on
Flamenco music or show movies (someone is doing that this year).
But the Fringe can put on its own sleight of shows, and then has
the ability to choose what is “fringe” and what isn’t.
That finger is offensive. It’s offensive because it’s there for
its own sake, not because there is a real statement behind it. It’s
offensive because it is personal, it’s not aimed at something, it’s
aimed at you and me. I may not go to a show, but I can think of nothing
at the Fringe over 15 years that I would find offensive, until this
finger. It’s offensive because it’s a sign of the festival getting
bigger than the independent troupes that are supposed to be the
key component.
Michael