91Ô­´´

VICTORIA FRINGE FESTIVAL

Where: Various venues, including Metro Studio Theatre, SKAM Satellite Studio and Baumann Centre
When: Through Sunday, Sept. 1
Tickets:

The Victoria Fringe Festival heads into its 38th edition Thursday with a steady operational framework based on years of trial and error. However, that accounts for a mere portion of the 10-day festival, whose non-juried programming is based on the same lottery system employed by all Fringe festivals across the country.

“Because it’s a lottery there is no one thing,” said artistic director Sean Guist of Intrepid Theatre Company, which produces the annual event. “That means the patrons are choosing what they want to see. Fringes are so popular because there’s so much to choose from.”

More than 150 local, national, and international artists applied to showcase their work at the 2024 Victoria Fringe, one of the oldest festivals of its kind in Canada. Only 28 applicants were selected, and those that made the cut were selected at random, with no preference given to the artistic merit or viability of the work being performed. The novel nature of the selection process is what makes the Fringe interesting and unpredictable, according to Guist. But the range of options available is also impressive, with performers from Japan and the United States joining others from Canada for 150 performances over a 10-day period.

The event runs Aug. 21 through Sept. 1 at five traditional venues and four unconventional venues across the city. The latter area was a big focus this year, as it gave organizers the opportunity to “have art on the edges of the festival, in new spaces and new ways,” Guist said. That adds another layer of mystery, he added. “What is this Fringe magic that happens each year? I think it’s the word of mouth, I think it’s the community buy-in, and I think it’s the breadth of options.”

At one time, little about the sprawling, multi-hued festival of alternative theatre changed from year to year, aside from the content. Participating venues were in place for extended periods, but due to the fallout from COVID-19, and subsequent cancellation of the Victoria Fringe in 2020, new options have been brought into the fold.

The venue tally in 2024 — which includes Metro Studio and Wood Hall at the Victoria Conservatory of Music, 91Ô­´´ Opera’s Baumann Centre, SKAM Satellite Studio, Intrepid Studio, Habit Coffee, Kirk Hall in St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, Redfern Party House in Oak Bay, and a dock at Cecelia Cove Park in the Burnside/Gorge area — is one of the most varied in the festival’s history. “The game changer for us in the last couple of years has been the unconventional venues,” Guist said.

“That’s a way, especially for local artists, to have a show in the festival, and for audiences to experience something a little bit different. In a city with a lack of venues, how can we help still help the arts flourish and give an artists and opportunity? I think the unconventional, site-specific venues do that.”

As a result, Guist likens the Fringe to the Choose Your Own Adventure series of children’s books, where readers made choices that determine the outcome of each story. “There’s so much to see, and I think what is really interesting is how you choose that for yourself. Our patrons become their own artistic directors, their own festival curators. They choose their path based on what you see in the program and at the preview. That puts a lot of autonomy on the patron, and that is really exciting.”

Certain hallmarks of the Victoria Fringe remain unchanged. Attendees must purchase a Fringe button to enter the majority of performances, which is good for the duration of the festival. Tickets must be purchased in advance — none are sold at the door — and 100 per cent of the revenue goes directly to the artists involved. The festival recoups some of its expenses through service charges.

The Fringe kicked off Wednesday at Market Square with the Fringe Eve Preview, during which time many dedicated festivalgoers made decisions based on two-minute showcases from each of the artists involved in this year’s festival. What follows during the course of the festival is a cornucopia of dance, comedy, drama, spoken word, and kids programming, with late-night events — in the form of karaoke, drag bingo, trivia and a singalong Grease screening — set to transform Intrepid Studio into a cabaret space, whereby festival supporters can lounge between shows and catch up on word-of-mouth festival favourites.

“It will be a way of having activations at night but also a spot where you can go and chill out and talk to people about what they are seeing,” Guist said.

The annual Pick of the Fringe awards will take place Sept. 1 at the Victoria Event Centre. Many of the performers will move on to the 91Ô­´´ Fringe Festival, which runs Sept. 5-15, but the Victoria Fringe will not soon be forgotten.

“The Fringe can introduce a whole new generation to theatre, and to live performance, at the festival. We call it a movement because a lot of these artists are travelling across the country to be here. We’re the end of the circuit for a lot of these artists, so our job is to make the space, make the place, and invite the people in.”

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