More Fantastic Fringe Festival Days For 2022

Newcastle Fringe Festival is gearing up for 2022, with applications for interested artists now open (closing 15 October). The team behind the festival feels confident that the festival will proceed in March, with vaccination levels likely to be high enough for life to return to some semblance of normal (at least in NSW!). So, in addition to the artist callout, the festival has made further changes to the way it operates.

Newcastle Fringe 2021 was the most successful local fringe festival to date, with over 3,100 tickets sold despite torrential rain. There were over 100 performances across 11 venues, with nearly 25% of audiences coming from outside the Newcastle and Lake Macquarie local government areas, which means that Fringe is also a great boon for local tourism.

Since the festival wrapped, there have been changes to the board, and a new strategy has been developed. Changes to the board include a new Chairperson, Brooke Twyford, a highly accomplished multi-media operations and logistics specialist with global experience across a range of world-class brands.

Most importantly, Fringe 2022 will now run from 17 to 27 March 2022 and includes two full weekends of entertainment. Yes, that's two weekends to accommodate what will no doubt be a hungry audience and equally enthusiastic artists.

This allows for a greater number of artists to have the opportunity to perform and for audiences to get out and experience the festival. Venues will include old favourites plus some new ones with festival hubs in Newcastle and Hamilton. The team are also locking in some venues in Lake Macquarie to broaden the reach. Running the festival over two weekends also provides an opportunity to drive visitation to the region, for the rest of NSW to travel to Newcastle and enjoy what the city offers.

Another exciting addition to the festival offering is curated content, branded Newcastle Fringe Presents. The core festival mission is still to produce an open-access festival, enabling anyone who wishes to perform the opportunity. Newcastle Fringe Presents will be a small number of hand-selected performances showing in different venues to the core festival. This enables the festival to have drawcard performances and artists without affecting the primary content other than to aid in the marketing of the festival as a whole.

The content for Newcastle Fringe Presents is currently being curated with the assistance of recently retired arts guru Robert Love who previously ran Riverside Theatres in Parramatta for more than 20 years. Robert is a former colleague of Newcastle Fringe Vice-Chair and Marketing board member Liane Morris.

"It’s so exciting to have Robert’s help with curating the festival content. When I heard he had retired, I wondered what he would do next. I reached out and was pleasantly shocked when he agreed to use his expertise, experience and connections to help the Fringe. There is nothing he doesn't know about the performing arts, how to produce it, present it, market it and sell it,” said Liane.

Artists wishing to participate in the festival should submit their expression of interest on the new fringe website www.newcastlefringe.com.au/artists.

Already some surprising artists have been confirmed, but the team are keeping it all under wraps for now. The team at intouch are excited to be working with Fringe 2022 as Media Partners – so we’ll be getting intouch regularly to let you know all the exciting Fringe news and artists as they come onboard. Watch this space!