No End In Sight...

The Continued Life of the Hollywood Fringe Festival

originally posted in Foot Lights

With 31 venues, 184 participant groups, and over 17,000 seats filled (wow!), we can happily check the box: The Hollywood Fringe Festival happened.

For three years leading up to June 17, 2010, we had no shortage of goals in realizing the dream of a Fringe Festival in Los Angeles. Our advice from many: “Just make it happen”. This has been a guiding star these past three years: What pieces do we need to assemble to bring this giant to life? The goals became clear: We need venues, participants, and patrons. Add group promotion, community building, and a little modern technology to sew it all together and we have ourselves a Fringe.

Where does that leave us? Now that the first event has come and gone, what guiding stars do we have left? As luck would have it, plenty. The work never ends so long as the mission is clear and the goals are well defined.

First and foremost, the Fringe is an annual ritual furnishing a springboard for the artistic experience. For artists and producers, it is a freedom-to-fail opportunity to test the waters of their inspiration in an atmosphere free of censorship and curation. Fringe was developed as an artistic Candyland, a fertile crescent for the motivated and creative mind. As with many other worldwide Fringes, we provide a launching pad for artists and artistic companies. Mark my words, many of our 2010 Fringe participants will become staples in our theatrical community within the next few years.

In an era where many fear theatregoers are an endangered species, the Fringe hatches newly minted arts patrons seeking the next theatrical kick. The mindset of the Fringer is to leave one performance craving another…and another…and another. With low cost admission and geographical proximity, what’s keeping them from feeding their desire? It’s this very mindset that we seek to push past the Fringe into the theaters, music halls, clubs, studios, and galleries hosting works of art all year-round.

There has been much chatter about this thing we call “The Fringe Effect”. This phenomenon happens when the dedicated (and sometimes exclusive) audience of one participating arts company is exposed to the hundreds of cultural opportunities presented by a Fringe Festival. As audiences co-mingle, a mass cross-pollination of audience support materializes in a very short time. Thus patronage for all arts groups grows on the momentum coming out of the festival – The Fringe Effect in action.

Our goals don’t end with artists and audience. Critical in our post-2010 plans are the participation of mid-size and large artistic companies. We’d like to see established companies use the Fringe as a feeding ground of new and interesting work. A larger theatre might reserve a season slot in July to mount their “Fringe Pick” – their favorite from the Fringe they’d like to re-mount or develop for a vaster audience. I have said it before: We’d like to become the Sundance of the Los Angeles arts community; the place to snare programming for future seasons. Many larger arts organizations spend precious dollars on development programs to achieve just this. We have it prêt-à-porter: Hundreds of shows all vying for their next big break, ripe for the picking.

We had a very successful experiment with our Fringe Central venue this year. Hundreds upon hundreds utilized our facility on Las Palmas as a gathering place for late night enjoyment and camaraderie. In addition to inexpensive (and sometimes exotic) drinks at the bar, we featured nightly “jams” – each with an entirely varying character. On some days we had artists perform minutes from their shows, others featured open-mic based games. We had a UK vs. US improv competition, dance parties, and then of course – in an unsettling metaphor of the arts today – a group sing-a-long of Queen’s “We are the Champions” to an empty house. It’s in environments such as these that relationships are nourished into rich artistic partnerships. Kudos to the other venues in the Fringe Zone that hosted similar gatherings to promote that kingpin of Fringe goals: A sense of community.

In years to come, we’d like to expand the operations of Fringe Central to provide a wider net for potential Fringe-goers. This includes a much enhanced outdoor presence including a permanent stage for artistic acts that thrive in these conditions. Buskers will also have a home in Fringe – with ample space to enthrall audiences and pull them into the fold. And of course, more of a carnival atmosphere – with food, crafts, games, and immersive experiences. We’d like significant expansion in the artistic genres of film, visual art, and music. More programming and events for children and families are in the planning phases.

We are blessed with a bountiful supply of Fringe-friendly, fully-equipped theaters in Hollywood. On the flip side, the convenience of these traditional theatrical spaces have inhibited some producers from flexing a much-lauded Fringe muscle: Converting a “found space” into a theatrical venue.

In future years, we hope to see more “entrepreneurial venues” pop up in store fronts, parks, vans, living rooms, and street corners. We have some amazing dots in our Fringe landscape to connect with venues such as these. As a Fringe patron walks from Hollywood Boulevard to Theatre Row, they should be beckoned by dozens of smaller, do-it-yourself venues. You simply should not be able to go outside in Hollywood during June without feeling a palpable presence of the arts.

Creating inventive systems to design and personalize your Fringe experience is paramount in our minds; with close to 200 shows in various time slots, simply scheduling your day was a significant task. Reviews were most helpful this year: We were blessed with an outpouring of support from the city’s critical agencies including an unprecedented partnership between Backstage and LA Weekly to cover over 40 of our first weekend’s shows, a “daily rag” of reviews produced by LATheatreReview.com, constant coverage by Bitter-Lemons.com, and close to 500 reviews composed directly on the Fringe website. Next year, we are exploring various ideas to ready reviews by the day Fringe opens.

We are also developing an intelligent scheduling system on HollywoodFringe.org to help patrons develop their Fringe days based on personal taste, timing, price, duration, critical opinion, and more. This new system will work closely with our current effort to develop a built-in Fringe ticketing system.

The nice thing about Fringe is that it is never done. It is always growing, always newly-defined as each year’s festival opens. New artists take to the stage, new relationships develop, and fresh patrons adventure from venue to venue seeking their next, best experience. This is how we like it: A project that never ends, an ever-expanding proving ground for inspiration, a playground for lovers of the arts.

Ben Hill, Festival Director
The Hollywood Fringe Festival
www.HollywoodFringe.org