Fringe festival breaks attendance records

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 26/07/2011 (5524 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Big Top Fringe has been Winnipeg’s biggest fringe festival yet.

The 12-day theatre festival wrapped up with a record-breaking weekend, selling more than 9,500 indoor tickets in a single day — a first in the event’s 24-year history.

This year’s fringe, in fact, broke attendance records several times, according to producer and ringmaster Chuck McEwen. Indoor attendance hit 87,845, up 1,128 from last year’s final tally of 86,717. There were 121 sellouts, and $630,029 in box office revenue was returned to the performers.

“We started off strong, beating our record for opening day attendance, and followed that with a record-breaking weekend,” McEwan said in a release. “We saw our attendance dip at the beginning of last week due to the extreme heat but thanks to our loyal patrons, we regained our balance and sailed through the weekend with the highest indoor attendance the Winnipeg fringe has ever seen.”

The 24th annual Winnipeg Fringe Theatre Festival featured 1,201 performances in 24 indoor venues.

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It closed on Sunday evening with the presentation of the Harry S. Rintoul Memorial Award for Best New Manitoban Play. This year’s recipients, Jessy Ardern and Ariel Levine (Sigurd the Dragonslayer), both 21, are the youngest playwrights to win the award.