Crowds make it a record-setting year for the Fringe Festival

Article by: Star Tribune
Updated: August 11, 2009 - 11:47 AM

Attendance for the 11-day fest grew 13% to more than 46,000.

" June of Arc" by Sandbox Theatre

Photo: Richard Fleischman, for Star Tribune

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With more than 46,000 tickets sold, the Minnesota Fringe Festival set a new all-time attendance record.

The 11-day performing arts festival -- spread across Minneapolis and St. Paul -- ended Sunday with a 13 percent increase over last year's attendance. The previous record was set in 2006 with 44,692 tickets sold.

EARLY NUMBERS: Preliminary numbers were up across the board, Fringe officials said. Box office revenue spiked at more than $330,000, compared with $297,374 in 2008.

However, the gross did not reach the 2006 high of $338,181. With 22 venues this year, the number of performances increased from 806 to 842. Attendance averaged 54.8 patrons per show, up from 51 in 2008. Four Humors Theater's "Sideways Stories From Wayside School" set a single-performance attendance record Saturday night with 402 tickets issued at the Rarig Center Thrust stage.

'BEYOND ECSTATIC': While the ailing economy has taken its toll elsewhere, Fringe officials still had high hopes for this year's festival. "I am beyond ecstatic," said executive director Robin Gillette. "I'm just walking on air."

The Fringe requires each festivalgoer to buy a button so it can gauge the number of people who attend each year. That total was just under last year's number of 15,178. Overall, the best attended show (1,067 tickets) was "The Harty Boys in The Case of the Limping Platypus," presented by Joshua English Scrimshaw and Levi Weinhagen. Tedious Brief Productions' "Bard Fiction" was a close second with 1,046.

TOM HORGEN