The 22nd Edition of the St-Ambroise Montreal FRINGE festival puts more bums in seats
The 22nd Edition of the St-Ambroise Montreal FRINGE festival puts more bums in seats
July 3rd, 2012 - Having opened with the FRINGE-For-All on June 4th, the 22nd edition of The St-Ambroise Montreal FRINGE festival drew to a close Sunday, June 24th. Over 62 500 festival-goers came to the Plateau Mile-End neighborhoods to celebrate creativity without limits! The festival's team is thrilled to announce an increase in indoor attendance.
Over 62 500 patrons attended this year. 31 000 FRINGERS took in the lovely weather and entertainment at FRINGE Park while 11 500 night owls joined the FRINGE After Dark series. With 108 productions, the 21 day festival hit its goal of selling over 20 000 tickets to the FRINGE A-Z Programming with 20 321 tickets sold, a 10% increase over 2011. The quality of the shows paired with good reviews and a streak of sunny weather improved attendance for this year's festival.
"The Montreal FRINGE is a festival produced by artists, for artists." Says Festival Director Amy Blackmore. "As always, the FRINGE is a lottery. You never know what you are going to get, but we got lucky this year and had a lot of amazing shows."
The buzz of the festival was all about the high quality of shows this year, the banning of bottled water at the FRINGE Park and the new L'Après FRINGE: The 13th Hour.
The weather was lovely throughout the festival making this year’s FRINGE the sunniest one to date! No events were cancelled due to rain.
We celebrated FRINGE Veteran Jem Rolls after one of his performances on the occasion of his 50th birthday!
The Unsettlers played to a full house at Cabaret du Mile End for Circus Carnival Party Night. The rebranding of the late night talk show L’Après FRINGE: The 13th Hour with Kiki Razzle, Filip Fairbanks and Cat Lemiaow was a huge success. FRINGE artists took the stage every night at 1 AM to showcase their talent. Theatre Sentinel from the show HACK stole the show one night when they yelled “RELEASE THE CHICKENS!” instead of the classic and scripted “11 Second Dance Party”.
The festival ended with the Frankie Awards Ceremony and a huge closing night party at Cabaret du Mile End. For a list of Frankie Award winners, please click here
St-Ambroise Montreal FRINGE Festival is the ultimate summer happening to hit up for that unbeatable neighborhood feel! Block party and performing arts collide every June in the Plateau/Mile-End for this celebration of creativity without limits that includes music, comedy, dance, visual arts and theatre from over 500 performers. The St-Ambroise Montreal FRINGE Festival is bilingual, and includes local, national and international artists from Montreal to Greece to Japan!
Photo credit: Cindy Lopez