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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
Fringe record
One should never judge the success of an artistic endeavour by something so crass as attendance or sales figures. Numbers, however, do tell us something about the strategy employed by the organizers of the Winnipeg Fringe Theatre Festival, which completed its 25th run on Sunday.
Their strategy appears to have paid off, at least in the short term. On Monday, the festival released its final figures showing ticket sales of 100,621. This is a record and a 15 per cent increase over last year's sales of 87,851 tickets.
The number of productions, mind you, also grew by almost 15 per cent, to 172 this year from 150 last year. With total box-office revenue of $686,188 this year, each of the 172 shows earned, on average, $4,000 for their eight to 12 performances, about the same as last year. For starving artists, that's not chicken feed, though few are giving up their day jobs just yet.
Fringe organizers, the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre, can control how large the festival gets by capping the number of groups willing to find their own venues. The numbers this year suggest that the festival can still allow a few more venues -- the total this year was 31 -- before the bread is buttered too thinly. In the meantime, Winnipeg continues to live up to its reputation as a city that supports the arts.
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition July 31, 2012 A10
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