the Fringe For All 2011
So yes I went to the Fringe For All. Nobody told me about it, but at least there was an ad in The Mirror that was towards the front. I guess they are back as a sponsor, I'm not sure what happens but every few years it switches between the two alt weeklies. But for a few years, the ad was stuck at the back of Hour, so it was not very obvious.
A few years back I skipped a couple of Fringe For Alls, for a few reasons. I don't like the venue, too dark and unfriendly, emotionally cold, but it's become long, tedious and routine. Maybe it's just because I've been to too many, but it seems like in the old days the acts really tried to get your attention, seeing it as a chance to pull you in early, rather than to present their art. The gimmicks happen less often, yet a two minute excerpt doesn't stand out that much. Better to have zombies on stage to make people remember your show is about Jane Austen than to present a snippet of that show.
I was ambivalent about going, it doesn't really put me in the mood, yet it is one of the triggers that mark the impending return of the Fringe. At least they start it an hour earlier than they used to, though it ran for four hours which is longer than it used to. Pat Donnelly said the doors opened at 5pm, though when I got there about 6:30 there was a line forming so maybe the 5pm was in reference to the media. I got a reasonable seat, so the venue hadn't been filling for two hours.
As usual, the press got the best seats, or at least the best seats were reserved for the press. I learned later by someone sitting there that much of the press did not appear. Unlike tradition, there was a press conference about May 16th, presumably because they wanted to get the word out about the early events, when usually the press conference is just before the FringeFor All. If the press didn't show up for the FFA, it's telling, they aren't interested in the snippets but the media kits. I'm not sure how much of this is true, but I know in the past I've seen the press slowly trickle out as the evening progresses, a large number disappearing at the intermission. I didn't see that, but I lost my seat at the intermission so I moved to the press section and didn't see that many familiar faces, and sure didn't take someone's seat away.
It was just a blur, I stopped going for two years when I realized I didn't get much out of it, not sure if it was me or the artists. It seemed to go on forever, but at least there seems less of a show than at one point a few years back. It's now so long because the number of acts has increased, and they all seem to want to be at the FFA. Memory says that in the old days, not every local act appeared.
I was sitting two rows behind the press section, and we did not get many flyers. Some acts would throw from the stage, that didn't get too far back. Some acts tossed from the balcony, which resulted in many landing on the floor near the front.
Flyers don't really matter, it's the contact with the acts that oes. The blurbs in the program don't say much, the flyers aren't an additional source of information, but meeting someone connected with the show provides peripheral information. It may not tell someone the right thing about the show, but that connection between the artist and the audience is what counts. The whole point is to get an early audience, to fill those seats and hopefully like it. If they do, that creates the buzz that will lead others. (Likewise doing something outrageous on stage creates buzz, keeping a show in public view.)
The venue is horrible for that contact with the audience. It's not easy to move through the crowd, it's too dark to really get much from being handed a flyer (when it happens). In the old days, we'd have to run a gauntlet to get into the Fringe For All, groups eager to pass you their flyer as you went in, far more intimate than passing a flyer in the dark today.
Someone was passing out shot glasses, dressed like waiters with trays (I'll reveal later which act). One woman had a basket of goodies, she was promoting the art sleepover, though the flyer was pretty vague and without greater context I didn't know at the time what she was offering. Someone gave away small chocolate bars, but I can't remember which act.
When it was finally over, some of the acts (at least I assumed it was the acts) started going through the piles of flyers to retrieve their own, doing it in a desultory fashion. Nobody thought of doing it collectively, everyone seemed to wonder who that guy was who was telling them to grab them all and sort them out later. I don't like to start too early, since maybe the audience will want flyers, but wait too long and the staff at the venue will clear out the "garbage". It's a fine line, I'm not sure if anything has changed. Once I saw the acts looking, I started collecting, and once again the flyers were saved from slaughter.
It;s not like I haven't written about this in the past, back in 2000 when I first saved the flyers, there was Flyers Saved From Slaughter and then in 2007, The Fringe For All is not a Press Conference.
After those four hours or so, I realized it is actually a cold venue. One thing that wore me down resisting the cold, not enough to completely bother me, but enough to realize it had been there.
