Veteran Fringers Brandon Baruch and Corwin Evans presented Workshop 4: How to Tech Your Fringe Show on Monday, May 9, at Sacred Fools Theatre.

Brandon and Corwin have put a folder of resources online for #hff16 participants to use, including a “How to Tech” manual, sample cue sheets, prompt books, and more! View it all here.

Offering discounts or comps to volunteers is a great way to give back to the Fringe community and get butts in the seats of your show. Please email our Volunteer Director, Stina Pederson, at [email protected] if you want to be included in the list of shows providing comps or discounts to Fringe volunteers. Please include the name of your show, your discount code, and what the code provides (whether the code will provide a comp or a certain dollar amount off). This information will only be shared with Fringe volunteers.

We have partnered with the City of West Hollywood’s One City One Pride LGBTQ Arts Festival to offer select participant shows with LGBTQ-themes complimentary Festival registration, courtesy of a scholarship received from the City of West Hollywood.
 
“As the Mayor of West Hollywood, I’m proud to support this new collaboration which extends the Hollywood Fringe westward as part of One City One Pride, the City’s LGBT Arts Festival,” says West Hollywood Mayor Lauren Meister. “This is just another example of how the City of West Hollywood supports our local arts community and helps provide more cultural offerings in West Hollywood.”
 
Today, the winners of this scholarship were randomly selected by the City of West Hollywood. We are excited to announce that the winners are: 

• GOD’S WAITING ROOM
• “LIFE’S A BITCH AND SO AM I” 
• THE GAY GUIDE TO TINSELTOWN
• SARAH G’S SPOT: THE #1 BALLSY WOMAN
• SNATCHED…STORIES FROM DOWN THERE
• RECLAIMED FREEDOM: FACT OR FICTION
• SKIN OF HONEY/PIEL DE MIEL
• THE COLLECTION BY HAROLD PINTER/ANNIVERSARY BY RACHEL BONDS

When we began this venture in 2007, our first true challenge was developing the model by which the festival operates. This was no easy task and involved extensive soul searching, graying hairs and long, contemplative walks.

There is no single operating model for Fringes though many of them have a lot in common:

• a focus on the performing arts
• shorter, less expensive shows.
• uncensored content
• “rapid fire” programming with shows stacked one atop the other

There’s no global Fringe organization that runs all festivals that include the word “fringe” in their titles; each festival is privately run and conforms to the unique principles that ensures success in its host town.

We knew we wanted the joyful chaos that embodies much of the international fringe spirit. We knew the performing arts should be front and center in our programming. We wanted to leverage the wonderful venues in Hollywood and the dedicated producers and owner/managers who run them.

But how would the Hollywood Fringe work?

To properly examine the model of a fringe, one must dissect three principal aspects:

Venue Management

How are venues booked? Are venues independent or run by the central fringe organization? What services do the venues offer and who offers them? Can participants bring their own venue?

Participant Programming

How are performance dates and times determined? Are all performances a fixed price? A fixed duration? Do all participants enjoy the same number of performances? What method is used to determine who can participate?

Festival Mission

Why is the festival being produced? What are its goals? Are they looking to boost the local economy? Foster community? Enrich its participants, venues and organizers? Highlight particular kinds of shows? Are they looking to expose their home city as a global arts player?

The decisions we made boiled down to five observations:

• Los Angeles is uniquely spread-out geographically and as a result struggles with community in the arts.
• Los Angeles boasts so many theatre companies and practicing performing arts professionals.
• Los Angeles boasts a vast array of actors and directors. It lacks a glut of theatrical producers.
• Los Angeles loves to party (and does it well).

These observations and our spiritual voyage to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe lead to epiphanies in how the festival might run.

Edinburgh is known for its venue model. Each venue is a self-operating business that books its own shows. This is how they’ve managed to grow sustainably over the years.

Empowering venues to operate independently creates a win-win-win-win. The festival wins by enjoying a model that allows it to grow sustainably. Existing and pop-up venues run their own shows, with their own rules and their own balance sheets. Participants have extraordinary freedom in matching the unique needs of their show to a venue of their choice. Patrons can rest easy that the fringe will keep coming back year over year as it grows/contracts.

This model addresses the question of developing producers in Los Angeles (and beyond). Much of the work of producing involves setting budgets, ticket prices, number of performances, choosing and working with a venue, selecting from a buffet of options on how to promote that show. Freedom can certainly be scary, so we provide a framework where a producer can try new approaches and choose their own adventure. This is how theatrical producers are formed and how they eventually contribute to the larger artistic ecosystem of a city.

And so, the operating model was created and we developed the mechanics of How the Fringe Works. It was a struggle but one worth the attention and frustration.

Want to learn more about Fringes around the world? For those interested in festival in the United States, check out the Unites States Association of Fringe Festivals. For Canadian fringes (including some in the US), check out the Canadian Association of Fringe Festivals. And for the global perspective, check out the World Fringe Alliance.

At the Fringe we are dedicated to providing platforms for unique and underserved artists. We are proud to announce our newest initiative: Fringe Scholarships. We are offering free registration to five participants who meet the scholarship criteria.

We are looking for artists whose festival participation will:

• Increase festival attendance and participation by local Hollywood residents
• Increase arts participation of ethnically diverse and/or low-income artists
• Enrich audience experience through the presentation of unique, underrepresented themes and/or narratives

A special committee will select the recipients. To apply for the Fringe Scholarship, fill out the online application found here by May 11.

This scholarship is partially funded through a grant from the California Community Foundation.