The teenagers from LOVE (Leave Out Violence Everyone) were at the Beer Tent on Friday soliciting donations. Some of last year's group returned, like a little reunion. I'd wanted to show them a book, but guessed wrong about what day they'd appear, and of course, they miss the Drag Race, that they seemed to enjoy last year, when I said unlike the other groups, they seemed to get something from their visit to the Fringe.
Actually, the groups have seemed more into it this year. There was one woman from the Native women's shelter who was surprised and pleased by t e offer of the cookies, and then I had a plastic bag for the woman who seemed to be the organizer when she was packing up. I said "We want your visit to the Fringe to be good". One of the women from Ami-Quebec gave a big smile when she rode off on her bicycle. I realized we should have given each four Fringe Bucks so they could get into a show (or just some outright single show pass). They sit at the table, surrounded by the Fringe, and we should give them a chance to see what it's really like. I'd give them my own Fringe Bucks, but I haven't gotten any in five years, so I no longer have a stash to hand out.
But this is one thing wrong with the Fringe. They have sponsors, but don't really tell us about them. We hear about the groups coming to collect donations, but there is no intimicy shown. It's hard to tell if the Fringe really likes these groups, or if it's mercenary, figuring people may be more likely to donate for these other causes than the Fringe (and sometimes it's hard to tell whether the Fringe needs money or not, it's not like they ever tell us anything).
I wrote about the teens from LOVE last year, because they were animated, becoming part of the Fringe. I pointed to a piece about Peter McAuslan last year, because I think he deserves more notice. I gave cookies to Debora who sat at the Beer Tent one year for Maisoneuve Magazine, and over a decade ago to the woman working at the little Nantha's tent, just because they were there and they should be considered part of it all. Last week when the Beer Rep appeared carrying one of the coolers for the beer, I rushed over to help her. Not because we should be good to the Beer Company, but because it seemed a polite thing to do. I helped blow up those purple feet from the wine company when the woman seemed to be struggling (the pump was overkill for the task, and required a lot of push for a small amount of air, Santropol Roulant had a much easier to use pump when they were tuning up bikes on Wednesday).
But the Fringe just points to them, "these are the sponsors". If I was running things, I'd be writing something about them, defining the relationship, because it's the thing to do. Otherwise, they are just blank objects, they are merely sponsors that some others can dismiss as controlling the festival. The Fringe has always been an intimate place, all those acts trying to get you to their show by interacting with you, seeing the staff and volunteers around so you feel like volunteering, and at least can respect the producer because they aren't just bossing people around. We are a different festival, not by defining but by action, and one way is to offer up more detail. Gossip is a connecting thing, and I'm not talking about malicious gossip. It brings people in.
For a couple of years, Ile sans Fils was listed as a sponsor (as I said at the time, kind of illusionary since the group is more an organizer, talking commercial entities like Mainline into sharing their wideband connection). Yet the most important thing to reveal was that there'd be wifi access at the Beer Tent, information rather than promotion. Yes, they helped, but that's far less important than how they helped. Indeed, the group is nothing if people aren't actually using the unified log-in that they are offering. The Fringe seemed to assume everyone would know why they were a sponsor, or maybe didn't care, they just felt an obligation to list them as a sponsor.
Even circa 1997, when maybe I said something somewhere that got CAM to be a sponsor (they even had a venue named after them at least one year), we could have leveraged that and had a terminal on site. But since the only information the Fringe wanted us to know was that they were a sponsor, the information didn't arrive until it was too late to organize something.
Indyish came for a few years, the Fringe didn't tell us really about them, though Indyish blew its horn. Some of that could have been far better handled by the Fringe telling us about them, rather than something new to live with.
There's a whole trail of things that have been part of the Fringe, yet they just often seem inflicted on us, the Fringe doesn't tell us "we like what they are doing, we asked them to come, and here are the reasons". We are not merely consumers of the art that appears at the Fringe, we are a key component of the Fringe.
One year, 1998, the Fringe did send out a sort of "newspaper" letting us knmow of the plans for that year, but it was more humorous than detail. But for a decade they'd send out email, likely still do, but they never really told us anything. Theatre St. Catherine suddenly opens up, the Fringe says out announcements of what was happenning there, but no mention of who was running it (I had to read that somewhere else). Initially, I thought the Fringe was running it. Then the Fringe did get its own venue, and some made up story about a poker game rather than truth, and they'd lready done the rennovations by the time we heard.
No, the Fringe can't put detail in the paper program, not without making it a whole lot larger. But that's what the internet is for, easy distribution, cheap printing cost. Indeed, it is the very existence of the webpage that begs the Fringe to say more. In the early days, there would be an ntroduction in the program that tried to drag us in, that's faded, as if we are just consumers of culture, to see the shows, to buy the beer, to be passive. The Fringe needs to change this, because either sponsors are obnoxious or they actually mean something to us.
I can remember saying to Patrick "you should work the crowd", but that meant being more visible during the year, being out there when it came time to bring in volunteers or have troupes apply for a slot in the Festival. The sad thing is, once they started doing that, they were acting, often putting on a role to work the crowd, rather than being honest.
