An Actor’s Guide to Fringe Festivals

Indie theatre made on a shoestring budget. Improv. Circus acts. Stand-up comedy. One-person shows about personal trauma—with puppets. Every imitator of Fleabag under the sun. With the Edinburgh Fringe Festival well underway, we thought it was a perfect time to talk about the important of fringe festivals in an actor’s career. Few things challenge you as an artist, or inspire you as an audience member quite like a good fringe season. It’s a time to open your mind and take chances: whether you’re up on stage or showing up to watch.

Fringe festivals are important cultural events for actors to attend, both as artist and audience. As participants, actors can take part in challenging, unusual material—often produced on low budgets by early-career writers/producers/directors. While these productions might lack polish, they are often creatively bold; this allows the ideas and artistry of the involved team to shine. As audience members, actors can discover new potential collaborators in the shows they attend. Fringe festivals are excellent ways of expanding one’s views on what exists in their local creative industry.

Even though we kicked this article off talking about one of the world’s best-known fringe festivals, you may be pleased to learn that there are hundreds of similar events taking place around the world. If you can’t get yourself to Scotland each August, a quick search online should show you that there are countless other options closer to home.

What is a Fringe Festival?

A fringe festival is an event that showcases the work of independent artists—usually native to its area but open to international acts as well. The programme may consist of theatre, cabaret, comedy, circus, dance and even film; what tends to unify acts is their creation by early and mid-career artists with independent (read: very litte) institutional or government support.

The term “fringe” can be traced back to its use by independent theatre companies who, in 1947, found themselves uninvited to the established Edinburgh Festival. They created a “Festival Fringe” event—independent to the main festival—to perform. The name, and the sentiment of free and independent expression, stuck.

This leads us to another important distinction: fringe festivals are known for their open nature, inviting artists to apply regardless of a pre-existing career. Many festivals are curated (or “juried”) by a panel of organisers that carefully select the artists in attendance. Fringe festivals are open to one and all: resulting in a mix of work that is amateurish, extremely polished and everything in between.

Why Should Actors go to Fringe Festivals?

There are two ways to answer this question: for actors as artists and actors as audience. Regardless of the answer that best suits you (we’ll look at both in detail below), let us say that it is extremely important, if you have a fringe festival local to you, that you lend it your support.

Fringe festivals are incubators for new talent in our industry. They invite participation from people who may not feel comfortable with traditional career paths such as drama school, or the wider independent theatre scene. This may well describe you—and if it does, then go start planning your fringe show now! But even if you find yourself comfortable enough in your career, in your creative community, think what it does to lift up the voices of those you’d not normally hear from.

This is the way to strengthening our industry: with greater numbers and diversified voices. And you can never be quite sure what strange little show might find an audience, gather a good review or two and end up changing the entire face of entertainment. Here’s one you might have heard of…

Fringe Festivals as Artist

Performing or producing work in a fringe festival feels a little bit like running away with the circus. It’s very exciting, a little bit scary, there tends to be a lot of partying involved—often in silly costumes. For artists, fringe is fun. That’s perhaps the most important takeaway on the subject.

If you have access to a fringe festival near you, it’s also a terrific time of year to find work in the indie scene. We can’t guarantee the pay will be above profit-share (that is, if you’re paid at all) but the abundance of hard-working artists renders fringe a prime time for networking and meeting new people.

If you fancy yourself as an independent producer, or creator of your own work, fringe is the perfect time to add a hat to your creative portfolio. Write a show, develop a comedy or clowning piece, write a cabaret if that’s something in your wheelhouse. Many fringe festivals understand that they may be dealing with first-time producers, and offer resources designed to help those people have a successful first run. The Sydney Fringe has a great website full of useful information you should check out.

Honestly, the biggest obstacle for artists at fringe festivals is standing out in a programme with, perhaps, thousands of people vying for the same audience at the same time slots. How do you stand out? What separates your show from countless other Baby Reindeer wannabes? This is something with no clear answer … which is not to say the question shouldn’t be answered.

Helpful Tips:

• Prep early! Get your team ready early in the year, as there will always be a mad dash for creatives and crew: designers, directors and ever-rare-and-beautiful stage managers.
• Write early! If your pitch for a new show is accepted for a festival in August, don’t wait until July to dust off the ol’ typewriter. Shoestring budget shows can stand out at fringe festivals when the material is solid. Write, polish, draft and get people involved for a workshop.
• Beware of scope-creep! Scope-creep is when your initial creative goal gets wider and wider as you continue development. Adding more characters/puppets/musical numbers is seldom the answer: keep things focused.
• Cross-promote and collaborate! Got friends with fringe shows as well? See if you can help them out—perhaps for some marketing shout-outs during your run. For the week your show might be playing, there are three whem it isn’t. See if you can fill these times volunteering or supporting your wider creative community.
• Take advantage of the artists’ pass! Most fringe festivals hand out passes to participants allowing them into other shows for free. Use this as the prompt to go and see as much of the festival as you possibly can.
• Be ready for the circus! Fringe will take over your life. Make sure you have the time you’ll need to spare off work, some back-up money in your bank account (especially if you are a producer of a fringe show) and that your support network knows what you’re getting yourself into. It’ll never be easy. But it’s a period in your professional life where you can do some solid prep beforehand.

Fringe Festivals as Audience

In 2025, Edinburgh Festival Fringe sports a little over 3,500 shows across 265 venues. Nobody will see them all. And the first thing you need to do as an audience member at a fringe festival is make peace with that fact.

Fringe festivals offer, by way of a massive output of shows and artists, specificity. Your job, as an artist attending fringe, is to look specifically for the things that speak to you and specifically for the things that don’t. Seek out the unexpected! Step outside of your lane and see what you can learn for your own practice in the strange work of others! Depending on the walkability of a host city, you might be able to fit six or seven shows a a day. Don’t waste this time on something “you could’ve done…”

See good shows, see bad shows. See bad shows on purpose (word gets around the festival) and work out why they’re bad … or perhaps why the audience/critics/gossip is wrong. And never be afraid to step up to a fellow artist after a show and introduce yourself. There’s a wonderful feeling of democracy in action at a fringe festival. You might not have half the career of that Famous Actor Doing Their One-Person Vanity Project: but fringe festivals are great equalisers, especially in the artist bar after hours.

Finally, fringe festivals are great spaces to recharge yourself, and remind yourself of why it is you do what you do. They are beautiful, liminal spaces removed from the real world: the aforementioned circus with which we all hope to run away. As an artist, you belong there. Enjoy that.

Helpful Tips:

• Research and plan! As soon as that festival programme comes out, start diarising and booking tickets nice and early. There will be a few headliners you won’t want to miss—especially international acts who may not otherwise tour to your country.
• Don’t research or plan! It’s always good to leave gaps in your schedule for unexpected shows and recommendations. You never know what you might stumble across at some poky venue, or what interesting artist you meet who invites you to their show because your interests align.
• Recharge! Six shows a day is the dream, but it’ll burn you out if you’re not careful. Build some time into your schedule to rest and reflect upon what you’ve seen. It’s a great time to write down any thoughts you might have on what you’ve seen throughout the festival.
• Make the fringe a social affair! Book shows with actor colleagues, industry peers, family and friends. There’s nothing better than seeing a show with somebody and then arguing over a pint at a nearby pub because one of you loved it and one of you hated it. (Plus, you’re doing your industry every favour by getting more of your social circle to buy a ticket or two.)

Popular Fringe Festivals

So: have we sold you? Ready to run away and join the circus? Here are a few big-tops that should most definitely be on your radar.

• Adelaide Fringe Festival (also worth seeing the Adelaide Cabaret Festival)
• Atlanta Fringe Festival
• Brighton Fringe Festival
• Dublin Fringe Festival
• Edinburgh Festival Fringe. The OG, the biggest and most regarded.
• Edmonton International Fringe Theatre Festival
• Melbourne Fringe Festival
• San Francisco Fringe Festival
• The Sydney Fringe Festival
• Toronto Fringe Festival

It’s worth noting that many of these festivals have international artist showcases. If you have a show that plays well locally, you can pitch it overseas to tour. Some festivals even provide monetary support to artists for this very endeavour.

Famous Fringe Exports

So there you have it: our guide to all things fringe for actors and creatives alike! In place of our usual article conclusion, we wanted to leave you with something slightly different. Below are a list of some famous works that began their lives as fringe shows. It’s a good reminder that a fringe show doesn’t have to be the end for a project—sometimes it’s the beginning of something bigger, or a career you didn’t expect to absolutely explode.

Flight of the Conchords (2002)

Six (2017)

Baby Reindeer (2019)

Taskmaster (2010)

And once more with glances to camera: Fleabag (2013)