It's Our Birthday!
Posted in Media Releases
The 2021 FRINGE WORLD Festival will be the 10th birthday of the popular annual event, and to celebrate there will be special stories from artists, staff, and Friends shared during the week 2-8 November.
ARTRAGE CEO Sharon Burgess said that the Festival had made an incredible impact on Perth and Western Australia.
“Having produced shows at the Festival in its early days and experienced our most recent 2020 Festival, I have witnessed first-hand the affection that Western Australian’s have for FRINGE WORLD; it’s so loved and so cherished,” Ms Burgess said.
“FRINGE WORLD is a festival for the people; from the thousands of local staff who are employed to sell tickets and run venues, to the hundreds of thousands of locals who annually enjoy shows and of course our incredible local artists, who annually make up around 70% of the program and without whom the Festival wouldn’t exist.”
Festival Director Amber Hasler has worked with ARTRAGE since the inaugural Festival in 2011.
“In our first year we sold 12,500 tickets and we rapidly grew to achieve the status of third largest Fringe in the world in four years' time. Our most recent Festival had 414,081 tickets issued and there were 722 events performed by 3,279 artists. This is incredible growth across the 10 years and continues to show us the Perth loves it’s Fringe!” Ms Hasler said.
“For our artists, the Festival has become a significant annual event and allowed our local artists to dream big, to launch a show and build to national and international touring, and to be celebrated and appreciated in their home state. I’m so proud to be part of such a successful homegrown major event that has had such a meaningful and positive impact for artists and audiences”
The Festival annually delivers more than $18 million in expenditure to the state and given the challenges local businesses have had due to COVID-19, the 2021 Festival looks set to be a valuable tool to stimulate the economic revival of WA.
“The economic benefits are great, but for me the most important role of FRINGE WORLD is that it brings our community together and through the shared experience of enjoying live performance we can foster better relationships, improve our sense of wellbeing and have fun!” Ms Burgess said.
Follow FRINGE WORLD on Facebook and Instagram to hear the birthday stories that will be shared from 2-8 November.
FRINGE WORLD Festival 2021 will run from 15 January to 13 February with the first tickets on sale from 12 November.
FRINGE WORLD gratefully recognises the support of its partners including: Principal Supporter: Lotterywest; Government Partners: the Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries and the City of Perth; and Principal Partners: Woodside; and Gage Roads Brew Co.
Photo by Cam Campbell.
Contact
Jo Hos, ARTRAGE Marketing Director
0430 552 962 / jo@artrage.com.au