Edmonton International Fringe Festival
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The Edmonton Fringe Festival is an annual event held every August in Edmonton, Alberta in Canada. It was established by director Brian Paisley in 1982 as the first "fringe festival" in North America, on the model of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. It has since become the largest in North America. The emphasis is on theatre, but performances can and do feature almost every form of art and entertainment. The festival itself takes place in Old Strathcona which has a number of permanent theatres (the Walterdale Playhouse, the Transalta Arts Barns, the Varscona Theatre, Catalyst Theatre, etc.) and a number of other venues (Acacia Hall, King Edward Academy etc.) which are converted into temporary theatres to host events. During the festival, the streets and alleys of the neighborhood are also filled with street performers and masked or costumed actors promoting their plays. Performers such as magician Ron Pearson, Rapid Fire Theatre, Die-Nasty, Teatro la Quindicina, Panties Productions, Mump and Smoot, The Wombats, Nickoli, Ryan Stock of Insane Entertainment and Tim Waterson have appeared at the festival regularly. More than 1500 performers take part in the festival each year. In 2006, over 77,000 tickets were sold to indoor shows, and over 500,000 people visited the festival site.
Unlike the Edinburgh festival, where artists are responsible for finding and running their own venues, the Edmonton Fringe implements a system in which for a relatively low set fee, the festival provides artists with a venue, a set number of performances, two technicians, and front-of-house and ticketing services.
