Rain, fewer shows put damper on fringe festival attendance

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This article was published 26/07/2016 (2822 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It rained five days out of 12 — including an especially wild thunderstorm that spawned tornadoes west of the city — and that literally put a damper on the attendance numbers of the 2016 Winnipeg Fringe Theatre Festival compared to past festivals, box office figures show.

Indoor attendance for the 2016 festival, which ran July 13-24, totalled 98,020 with 176 sold-out performances and $724,288 in box office revenue that was returned to the performing companies.

The festival featured 169 companies with 1,409 total indoor performances, compared to 181 companies and 1,513 total indoor performances in 2015.

Last year, record-setting indoor attendance totalled 108,721 and daily attendance records were broken on seven out of 12 days, with 237 sellouts and $800,142 in box office revenue.

“We didn’t get as lucky with the weather this year, but it’s still encouraging to see that fringers still came out to have fun and play, even in the rain,” says fringe festival executive producer Chuck McEwen.

Another factor was the unexpected cancellation of four shows, compared to no cancelled shows in 2015.

On the plus side, future fringe festivals may have a loyal following given an uptick in attendees to the fringe’s Kids Venue, which set an attendance record with 5,262 tickets sold, a 13 per cent increase from the 4,640 children and families who attended in 2015.

The rise in numbers was attributable to the Kids Venue being moved to the larger capacity Manitoba Theatre for Young People at The Forks, away from the smaller and less kid-friendly School of Contemporary Dancers venue of past festivals. McEwen isn’t saying that this may mean a permanent move of the Kids Venue to MTYP.

“We’ll have a conversation about that and poll the performance companies,” he said.

Considering a few evenings of heavy rainfall, McEwen says the attendance was still strong, especially if you consider the average attendance per show. This year, the average attendance per performance was 69.6, compared to 71.8 in 2015, McEwen says, adding that performers did not take an especially hard hit.

“Last year, the average revenue per company was $4,421, compared to $4,285 this year, so that’s just a bit under,” McEwen says. “If we had had great weather, it might have been even better than last year.”

Next year’s Winnipeg Fringe Theatre Festival will run from July 19-30.

randall.king@freepress.mb.caTwitter: @FreepKing