Hollywood Fringe Festival
Fringe festival in Hollywood
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Hollywood Fringe Festival is an annual fringe theatre festival in Hollywood, California.[1][3] Most indoor venues for the festival are in and around Hollywood Theatre Row, a 1.4-mile (2.3 km) stretch of Santa Monica Boulevard in Los Angeles.[4]
| Hollywood Fringe Festival | |
|---|---|
| |
| Status | Active |
| Genre | Festival |
| Frequency | Annual |
| Venue | Multiple venues |
| Locations | Hollywood Theatre Row and vicinity |
| Country | United States |
| Participants | 233 companies (2012)[1] |
| Attendance | 25,000 (2012)[1] |
Leader | Ben Hill (festival director)[2] |
| Website | hollywoodfringe |
The shows are not curated (selected based on merit).[5] To perform, one must pay a registration fee[4] and be ready with a concept and the means to produce it.[6] The festival organizers market the event and provide some support, but the theatre companies must find their own venues and market their own shows.[6] Many shows are produced by independent theatre companies; others are created by individual artists or one-time collaborators.
History
Founder Ben Hill started trying to organize a local fringe festival not long after he moved to Los Angeles from Iowa City in 2007.[4][5] He and other organizers launched the first Hollywood Fringe Festival in the summer of 2010.[1][7] That year, there were 130 shows in the festival.[6]
In the 2012 festival, theatre companies produced more than 230 shows and gave more than 1,000 performances.[1] Companies participating in the 2014 festival produced more than 300 shows.[6]
Approximately 56,000 tickets were sold for the 2016 festival, which drew an estimated $447,000 in revenue. (It is the policy of Hollywood Fringe to pay all revenue from ticket sales to the artists and venues.)[8]
In 2018, the Hollywood Fringe Festival was one of the filming locations for the trivia game show Buzz'd Out!.[9]
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Hollywood Fringe organizers cancelled the 2020 festival.[10] In 2021, the festival took place from August 12th to 29th.[11] In 2023, the festival took place from June 8th to 25th.