Two days before the 5th annual Newcastle Fringe festival was due to kick off in March 2020, it had to be cancelled because of the pandemic lockdown.
"It was gut-wrenching to cancel," recalls Liane Morris, board member and marketing officer for the festival. "We had fantastic acts, some coming from England, some coming Adelaide [Fringe], even Sydney Comedy Festival sell-outs. We really had high calibre acts coming. To cancel two days out was terrible."
The festival was originally the brainchild of Phillip Aughey, a playwright, actor and founder of Anvil Creek Theatre Company in Branxton where he has lived. Inspired by what he saw at Edinburgh Fringe Festival, where he performed (where he has performed), he poured his own money into creating the first four Fringe events in Newcastle. Despite the fact that Aughey (who is still the festival director) was tired of people telling him how to run the festival, he took heed when it was suggested he make it a non-profit organisation and create a board of directors.
Brooke Twyford, a widely experienced administrator came on board as public officer, and she brought experienced publicist and marketer Liane Morris with her. Other board members are Eric Cullen (operations manager), Rebecca Fitzgibbons (treasurer), Beau Magliore and Declan Dowling.
"They've been such a help," Aughey says. "They really helped Newcastle Fringe take an enormous step."
He lays it out straight: "When I met all these people, I thought, 'hey, they are good'. You've got all this enthusiasm, they like your basic structure. Let their imagination go wild. I'm a little bit proud of myself that I let go of the baby. It's positive, it's worked out well.
"A lot of people in my position with big egos wouldn't do that."
And they have never looked back. Although 2020 was a wipeout, a "survival" grant from the Australia Council allowed them to get through the crisis of 2020.
LESSONS
The lessons and contacts from 2020 probably made them stronger. The 2021 Newcastle Fringe Festival, which runs March 17-21, includes more than 100 events over five days with more than 40 performers.
While the event runs a mere three weeks after the first New Annual festival, Fringe has received much-welcomed financial assistance from the council, enough to allow performers to get back their registration fee (after performing).
"This time, struggling artists will have more money in their pockets at the end of the day," Twyford says.
This year includes Binge Newy Fringe, a program of streaming coverage of selected events which will be broadcast to the world, plus a showing of three international productions. It will run March 22-28, and includes a fee.
The festival trialled streaming last year under pressure, as the pandemic closed in on it.
"We flipped to livestreaming, from the Royal Exchange," Morris says of the 2020 festival's opening. "We had to pivot very, very fast. We had no experience livestreaming. We did three local acts on someone's phone direct to Facebook. We still had 2445 views of that stream. That's pretty good."
It was also a signal they were reaching a younger audience, with the 25-to-40-year-olds more engaged than ever before. Also, discounted ticket prices for students has continued this year.
Newcastle Fringe has also spread its wings and will launch Dubbo Fringe, running May 6-8. The event will serve as a test run for expanding the fringe concept to other NSW regional centres.
This year's event will also see an expansion of venues. Originally, the festival's strategy was to run shows in a small number of venues, that were easy walking distance to each other. But, with new shows and new COVID rules, there are more large venues, including the Creative Art Space on Beaumont Street in Hamilton, The Gal (Gallipoli Legion Club) in Hamilton, Lizotte's music club in Lambton, and The Base (formerly Unorthodox Church of Groove) in Hamilton, Adamstown Uniting Church, and Carrington Bowling Club.
"It's an exciting, experimental stage for us," Morris says.
Since the first year, the festival has taken pride that the average number of attendees per event is excellent for such an avant garde event. While Edinburgh Fringe Festival has thousands of events, the average attendance per event is less than 10. Newcastle Fringe's average attendance per event is 25.
The festival also includes a family days on Saturday, March 20, and Sunday, March 21, at The Station, which will include Hunter Arts Bazaar, live music, food trucks and, of course, festival performers. There will also be a performance by Ukastle Ukestra, our own unique and accomplished ukulele orchestra.
The festival covers a wide range of performers, with more cabaret and theatre than in the past, and still a strong local element.
Additionally, there are also workshops, and an emerging filmmakers competition as well.
To me personally, what a fringe is all about is getting emerging artists to come through, helping the young people. The other thing that is very important about fringe, there is no limit about content.
Phillip Aughey, director, Newcastle Fringe
SPIRIT
Aughey's spirit and intention remains well alive in Newcastle Fringe.
"To me personally, what a fringe is all about is getting emerging artists to come through, helping the young people," Aughey says. "The other thing that is very important about fringe, there is no limit about content," he says.
"What annoys me, I notice with my writing, the entertainment world has become overly commercial. If you don't put on a show unless it's going to sell, I think that is abhorrent. I don't like that idea.
"Do you remember ... Ken Russell, Stanley Kubrick, Pink Floyd. It was art. They were expressing themselves... these days, it's all the same.
"That is the most precious thing to me about Fringe, art for arts sake, because performing art in a commercial world is commercial ... it's not saying anything.
"That's what art's about. It's expressing the thought, an artistic idea."
Liane Morris puts it simply: "We don't censor at all."
In the true fringe tradition, Newcastle's festival welcomes all comers. The festival is not curated. The growth in acts and in crowd attendance has been steady, with a big bump in the past two years.
newcastlefringe.com.au
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