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Record-breaking Brighton Fringe boss heads to South Africa

Following hot on the heels of the most amazing statistics concerning this year’s festival comes the news that Brighton Fringe Managing Director, Julian Caddy is currently representing Brighton Fringe at the Grahamstown National Arts Festival and Fringe in South Africa (28 June – 8 July).

This year Brighton Fringe had a record-breaking 743 individual events, including 171 free ones, offering 3622 performances at 192 venues across the city, including six Victorian-style bathing machines. There were over 206,000 attendances, a 14.5% increase on 2011, including 45,000 people visiting the free Fringe City outdoor showcase events. Nearly 1.2 million pounds were spent on over 135,000 tickets, making the average ticket price less than £9 pounds.

Managing Director, Caddy said: “Brighton Fringe is not just big, it’s vast. Just to put things into context, it would take you 5 months, watching 24 hours a day, to see every performance. So you can only ever hope to see a fraction of what’s on offer. But it’s there to be discovered, and everyone’s Brighton Fringe journey, including my own, is a very personal one.”

Based on this year’s incredible success, Brighton Fringe 2013 will be expanded to four weeks to include the May half-term holiday. The dates of the festival will be 4 May – 2 June 2013 with registration from 6 Nov 2012 – 4 Feb 2013.

The legacy of the successful Brighton Fringe 2012 shows started with a Brighton in the Square season at Leicester Square Theatre in London during May and June and many shows are already booked to go to other festivals including Barnstaple Fringe Theatre Festival (21-24 June), Summer Arts Festival, Arts Theatre, London, (24 June – 15 July), Camden Fringe (30 July – 26 Aug), Vintage Festival in Northamptonshire (13-15 July), Bestival (6-9 Sep) and, of course, The Edinburgh Festival Fringe (3-27 Aug).

Brighton Fringe is also a member of the World Fringe Alliance, a new network of fringe festivals from around the world that explores joint sponsorship opportunities, cultural exchanges and professional development. The alliance, comprising eight fringe festivals from four continents (Amsterdam, Prague, Adelaide, Perth, New York, Hollywood, Grahamstown and Brighton), was launched last year at the Amsterdam Fringe Festival and has a collective annual audience in excess of 1 million. It aims to promote ‘creative pathways’ for artists to move between member fringe festivals as well as to present a collective offering to global sponsors and funders.

Caddy has been invited to join the panel of judges for Grahamstown’s ‘Standard Bank Ovations Award’ and to join discussions about joint sponsorship opportunities. He is, of course, also on the lookout for artists and promoters who might want to take part in Brighton Fringe in the future.

Tony Lankester, CEO of the Grahamstown National Arts Festival and the inaugural Chairman of the Alliance said: “We’re all passionate about the concept of “fringe”, which is characterised by open access stages, independent, fresh artistic voices pushing artistic boundaries, and a vibrancy and energy that contributes to a magical experience for audiences and artists. We believe that this is the foundation of a strong relationship among our member fringes and presents a hugely compelling and attractive market for sponsors and brands which match this spirit of innovation.”

Caddy said: “As England’s largest arts festival, Brighton Fringe is now an event of global significance, so to be invited to the National Arts Festival of South Africa is a great development, not just for Brighton Fringe, but for the city as a whole – and we should all be extremely proud of that.”

- by Paul Lucas-Scott

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