I've been going to the Fringe Festival for more years than I can remember and even volunteered one year to help out[Cover Story, "Live Arts/Fringe '09," Sept. 3, 2009]. I remember the days when my crew would do 10 to 15 shows a festival. Most were less than spectacular but there were always a few gems in the mix. You could just never tell in advance where the sleeper was. Last Friday I went to buy three tickets online for a one-hour performance, only to find that the tickets were $30 each. I was further shocked when I saw that all of the "Live Arts" shows were $25-$30. Now, please, save the whole Live Arts-Philly Fringe distinction crap. The whole point of this was to provide a platform where artists who could get no other venue (i.e., "iffy artists") could perform and also to give Philly a greater cultural reach with acts outside of our area. But $30 for a one-hour show?! Honey, if you were that good you'd be on Broadway, not Broad Street. In years gone by, it would be no problem to go to a show and if it wasn't good just go to the next one. That was the greatness of the festival. I have to say, if I spent $90 and it was some experimental test run of somebody's vision that didn't work out, I would have been pissed. This commercialization of the festival makes it financially impossible to really take risks on what you see and that, I believe, was the whole point. They might be planting the seeds of their destruction because my friends and I are boycotting all Live Arts shows and this is not the first year we haven't been pleased.
Missing the old Fringe!
Billy Wolf
Downtown
Aw, Nuts
I'm all for liberation, body acceptance and the like, but stunts like this and Critical Mass do more harm than good for bicycle advocacy [The Clog, "Naked in the Streets: Video footage from the Philadelphia Naked Bike Ride," Sept. 7, 2009]. While attempting to make the point that bicycles and bicycle commuting are normal (not fringe) activities and should be integrated into the mainstream (which I fully agree with — there's no better way to get around a city), acting just the opposite is an inane way to get the idea across. All you're doing is self-perpetuating your own marginalization while also pissing off motorists who have somewhere to go.
I agree with Billy Wolf. As a former volunteer, I've also distanced myself from the fringe, and it's not just ticket prices. I stopped into the festival bar and saw a verizon table with business cards and pamphlets. Why not just do the whole thing a month early and wrap it into Sunoco Welcome America? Thank God for Scott Johnston for keeping the Late Night Cabaret alive.
by Robert on September 15th 2009 6:20 PM
My first Fringe: loved "Welcome to Yuba City" but wonder, with Billy Wolf, why some of the other shows are so expensive, though obviously experimental. Few seem to be more than 45 minutes or an hour and are in not-so-comfortable venues; so why the heavy freight for the curious?
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