2012 Festival Review

2012: A FRINGE ODYSSEY The Outer Limits of Theatre

Festival Review

SEPT. 6-16 On and around Granville Island vancouverfringe.com

Credits Photos by: Paola Bacaro Gaelan Beatty Britta Becker Michael Gabriana Katie Gingera Thorsten Gohl Sandra Jasinoski Susan Kang Aida Miri Chris Ross Daisy Yang

Illustrations by: Zuzia Juszkiewicz

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For sponsorship information and opportunities, please contact: David Jordan, Executive Director david@vancouverfringe.com or Gareth Duncan, Director of Development gareth@vancouverfringe.com

Thanks to the Vancouver Fringe Festival Volunteers and Staff for their immense contribution to the Festival!

Table of Contents Festival Overview...................................... 4 Thanks to Our Partners ...........................6 Marketing Initiatives ................................8 Opening Night ........................................10 Fringe Onsite ...........................................12 Fringe-For-All ..........................................14 Fundraising Initiatives ...........................15 St. Ambroise Fringe Bar & the Peter Lehmann Wines Stage ...........................16 Artists’ Cabaret .......................................18 Fringe Awards Night & the Public Market Pick of the Fringe .................19 Plans for 2013 ......................................... 20

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Festival Overview

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2012

was another exciting year of development for the Fringe. With 97 shows doing over 750 performances (not counting the live music and other free programming) we hustled and bustled like never before. Some of our initiatives like Onsite and the Fringe-for-All are now becoming woven tightly into the fabric of the Festival. We continue to enact our plan to animate the streets as well as the theatres with new activities to encourage the social and interactive aspects of the Festival like photo booths, t-shirt modification stations, button making, karaoke, etc.

We’ve even added improv and storytelling theatre to our outdoor stage.

As always, Festival-goers enjoyed a wonderful variety of the theatre presented: dance, puppetry, magic, traditional solo, and ensemble shows. One of our most popular shows featured God, as a Scottish drag queen, and another featured a huge cast of artists from Japan in a mad-cap musical about a mortuary and the afterlife! We never cease to be amazed by the richness of the work that comes to the Festival each year.

The 2012 Fringe was unique for me, as my wife and I welcomed a new son into our

family half-way through. So, in the middle of the Festival my attention turned from the great celebration of the Fringe to a much more intimate celebration at home with our boys and my wife. I was struck by the similarity of the new life at home and the new artistic life at the Festival. In both situations, we encounter challenges and sleepless nights.

In order to give birth and to be healthy we need a community of support around us. I was lucky enough to see this type of support in action both at home and at the Festival, whose team had come together so well that all functioned perfectly despite my absence.

I was in awe.

We’re so proud to say that now, more than

ever before, we are making our vision of “Theatre for Everyone” a reality through the Vancouver Fringe. Sponsors and funders, donors, volunteers, artists, staff, and our board of directors showed a new level of commitment to taking the Fringe to the next level.

Fringefully yours, David Jordan Executive Director

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Thanks Partners!

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ithout our sponsor partners, the Fringe have demonstrated their understanding of Festival could not be as unique and in- the value of the Festival. We’d like to extend teresting nor as successful as it is. Whether special thanks to car2go and McAuslan for through cash support, increased in-kind invest- their significantly increased involvement this ments, or both, returning and new sponsors year and the impacts they had on the Festival.

With huge thanks we combined forces to help us Thanks a million welcome new sponsors, produce a smash Festival to our sponsors for WestJet, Peter Lehmann that was our second largest and possibly our best yet!

Wines, Edible Canada, helping raise the We bid a hearty welcome and the Sheraton Kona Fringe to new heights!

Resort & Spa at Keauhou back to returning sponsors: CMHC Granville Island, Mac Bay. These sponsors were all integral to Station, the Georgia Straight, CTV, McAuslan- our fundraising efforts, donating flights, St. Ambroise, car2go, Camino, Speedpro wine, accommodation, and appetizers. They Imaging, AGRO CafĂŠ, Origins Organic supported our VIP programs and helped make Coffee, Blenz Coffee, Dockside Restaurant, our events more successful than ever before.

Thanks a million to all our sponsors for PrintPrint.ca, and CiTR 101.9 FM! Through years of continuing support, these partners helping raise the Fringe to new heights!

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he Fringe builds a new audience base and new strategic partnerships every year. We value the important role that corporate partners play in supporting the growth of the Fringe and the enhancement of patrons’ Festival experiences.

In turn, when companies sponsor the Fringe, they reap the benefits of associating with a high profile event while developing a meaningful relationship with our large and diverse

audience. We invite you to become a sponsor of the Fringe and interact with over 30,000 Festival goers throughout Greater Vancouver and 350,000 Granville Island visitors! Below are the standard sponsorship levels. The listed highlights of what is possible at each level are mostly cumulative and flexible. We also pride ourselves on tailoring sponsorships to embrace the unique vision and goals of each Partner.

Presenting Partner

Leading Partner

Become a Sponsor

• Exclusive venue or event co-branding with Fringe and associated marketing and publicity • Festival-wide curtain speech recognition • Contest opportunities

Signature Partner

• Venue or event co-branding with Fringe and associated marketing and publicity • Category exclusivity • Site activation • Venue naming rights and curtain speech recognition • Full page, full colour ad in Festival Program Guide • Logo recognition in all print advertising • Opening Night presence, podium recognition

• Half page, full colour ad in Festival Program Guide • E-newsletter feature article • Logo placement in some print advertising

Supporting Partner

• Quarter page, full colour ad in Festival Program Guide • Logo placement in Festival Program Guide and on Partner Recognition Boards, posters, and website • Tickets to Mainstage performances and Opening Night

Sustaining Partner

• Micro-activation and related advertising • Logo placement on posters and website • Discounted advertising in Festival Program Guide • Tickets to Mainstage performances Vancouver Fringe Festival 7

Marketing

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he Fringe has always enjoyed a loyal and large audience—and they’re our best source of advertising. Through word of mouth and social media, our 4,600+ Facebook fans and 5,200+ Twitter followers connect with the Fringe. They engage and provide feedback, thus ensuring a commitment to the Festival they see as “theirs.” The anchor to this online presence is our website, which sees 100,000 visits annually, spiking with over 68,000 visits in August and September.

In addition to our robust web presence, we conduct a substantial 8-week paid and sponsored advertising campaign in the Georgia Straight (in addition to the 8-page pullout section in the September issue that coincides with the first day of the Festival). Add in the other print media space purchased and we have a far-reaching print campaign.

We increased outdoor advertising this year with 20 Transit Shelter Ads, the outdoor screen at Robson and Granville (which airs a 10-second commercial), and a city-wide poster campaign, all of which run throughout August and September.

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marketing is our e-newsletter, which we send to nearly than 18,000 subscribers approximatly 15 times a year. These newsletters give our fan base an in-depth look behind the scenes of the Festival and at Vancouver’s theatre community. Subscribers regularly provide positive feedback saying that they thoroughly read our newsletters and enjoy the well written content. These newsletters enjoy an email open rate that is consistently above the industry norm.

Fundamental as newsletters are to patron engagement, the Festival would be overwhelming without the essential print Program Guide. Our Partner, Blenz Coffee provided the core city distribution locations

for this 60-page tabloid newspaper guide, with further distribution being reinforced at community centres, libraries, and other Fringe-friendly businesses. We printed 30,000 copies and it received over 36,000 online views.

In our third year of providing an iPhone App, we updated its versatility with all new bells and whistles from our world class developer, Xomo.

Finally, our cross-promotional initiatives with arts organizations throughout the city including Pacific CinÊmathèque, Festival Cinemas, and local theatre companies, further deepens our reach. In this way, we strengthen our connection to the arts communities by sharing and developing existing and new audiences.

In addition to this exposure, the 2012 Fringe was wellreceived in the media, increasing our overall profile

and the intangible value of our properties. This year, known media coverage included more than 200 print and blog mentions. Including a cover story in the Georgia Straight as well as coverage in all major weekly and daily newspapers. Television coverage included interviews featured on Global, Shaw TV, CBC Radio Canada, and CTV. CTV also included the Fringe in the CTV Community Calendar, Best of BC (on air and on the web), and regularly aired a 30-second commercial spot on the Fringe.

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Opening Night Sept. 4, 2012

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pening Night is our signature fundraising event and heralds the beginning of each Festival. In line with our overarching tagline, 2012: A Fringe Odyssey, we called this year’s opener “The Big Bang.”

The evening definitely lived up to its name, launching one of our biggest, and perhaps our best Festival to date, and raising $31,000 in the process—an almost 10% increase over 2011!

Performance Works on Granville Island served as the perfect launching pad, with tasty hors d’oeuvres from Edible Canada, Dockside Restaurant, and The Keg. The ever popular Silent Auction items and wine sampling, courtesy of Peter Lehmann Wines, kept the patio bustling with excitement and anticipation. CTV’s beloved weathercaster Marke Driesschen officially opened the evening, then handed the controls to audience favourite David C. Jones to emcee in his usual, yet unpredictable and hilarious way.

Skits with unsuspecting audience members mixed with performances from seven Fringe Festival shows.

Performance auctioneer Elias Arjan returned for a second year to helm the main fundraising event, our ever-growing Live Auction! A high-spirited crowd bid on hotel, travel, and adventure packages, artwork, and one-of-a-kind experiences with theatre personalities and artists. This year’s Live Auction alone raised $17,000, a massive increase over last year!

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T Fringe Onsite

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his was the second year for our mentorship program, Fringe Onsite. Led by The Only Animal, Vancouver’s premier site-specific theatre company, Fringe Onsite gave artists the chance to develop skills in producing site-specific theatre. Now well-established, this program marks a new chapter for the Fringe in which we actively partake in the creation of new work to be presented at the Festival.

In a clear vote of support, the Royal Bank of Canada’s Emerging Artists Project increased its support to help us develop an even more rigorous program. Over the course of six months, artists in the Fringe Onsite program worked intensively with The Only Animal’s Producing Artistic Director, Kendra Fanconi, and our own Executive Director, David Jordan, to write and stage stories inspired by specific locations on Granville Island—and then bring the space to life with actors, costumes, sound, and lights for the Festival.

Artists learned about the challenges of working outside the walls of a theatre.

2012 shows took place in a parking garage, a cement factory repair shop, in dark alleys, on playground equipment,

and many more unexpected locations.

The 2012 edition of the program produced remarkable shows, but one, Felony, had the Island up in arms. This walking tour show tested audience limits as its artists taught them how to pickpocket and to witness and commit petty false crimes—how’s that for engaging audiences? They certainly all looked engaged with hands against the wall at the end of the show when “cops” apprehended them!

This program and the shows it creates represent exciting new ways for artists to create theatre and for audiences to experience it.

“The Onsite Program has been a thrilling challenge and a tremendous learning experience,” Melanie Reich, a participant in the Onsite Program explains. “It was exactly the type of program I needed to help me transition from a theatre student into a theatre artist. Onsite broadened my understanding of how to create theatre and provided opportunities to expand my practical skills. It is hands-on learning in every aspect of creating theatre and the site-specific element made it even more exciting.”

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The Georgia Straight

Fringe-For-All

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his year marked our second year for the Fringe-ForAll—and it was just as wild as the first year with 40 previews in under two hours!

An assortment of Fringe artists, who covered the gamut of performance types, showcased their plays in just two minutes each—with lighting and sound cues happening on the fly! The enthusiastic, standing room only audience made sure that this Festival kick off event set an unstoppable tempo for the 11 days to follow. Another smash fundraiser, the evening raised $2,000 to support the Festival and Fringe artists!

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Fundraising Initiatives

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e increased Festival and year-round fundraising and its visibility. Rising donor numbers and solid retention rates show an audience that is deeply committed to the Fringe, taking true “ownership” over the Festival. We continue to develop microsponsorship opportunities for businesses to support our fundraising with their products, targeted leveraging, and other means that connect our mutual goals and engage our growing audience.

kind support from Sheraton Kona and E-Ride/Greenwit. Edible Canada has also taken on a new, key role in VIP events.

Other Fundraising Initiatives & Partnership Leveraging / In-Kind Opportunities • Spring for the Fringe: Our yearly fundraising in late spring • Fringe Bar Outdoor Hub: Camino has shown the success of corporate presence here • Raffle: In-kind opportunity for solid multichannel Festival-wide exposure Current Sponsor Involvement and Impacts • Flaunt Your Fringe: Ticket purchasing La Siembra’s Camino products form a cordonation opportunity for leveraging (approximately 15,000 advance tickets nerstone of support for our Festival-time purchased) fundraising efforts. Each year, we increase the presence and reach of these efforts. This • VIP Stewardship Events: Ranging from receptions to special insider opportunities year, we added a Festival-wide raffle with in-

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ne of the biggest challenges for the St. Ambroise Fringe Bar (located at AGRO Café) was sustaining the sales and attendance gains of the banner year in 2011. Not only did we achieve that goal, but Fringe Bar attendance actually grew and Festival alcohol sales went up a further 30%! Late in the pre-Festival preparation we also had to face losing our former wine sponsor of four years.

We landed on our feet in an even stronger Partnership with Peter Lehmann Wines, who also took over titling rights to the outdoor stage and helped us achieve our goals.

In tandem with enlarging and further animating the outdoor Festival space associated with the Bar (the Fringe Bar Hub), we increased programming on the Peter Lehmann Wines Stage and our associated marketing in the Festival Program Guide, web pages, and print advertising.

We continued the high quality of live music, highlighting local indie folk rock and pop, Brazilian and West African, and a different “flavoured” DJ each night. Popular forums and artists workshops complemented the unique spoken entertainment that filled out each evening’s programming.

We expanded the Fringe Bar Hub food options, with sponsor and Fringe Bar host, AGRO Café, and a variety of food trucks each night offering tasty snacks and micromeals. The reprised Camino Lounge (supported by La Siembra) provided a chocolatey treat in exchange for a small donation—and we revived the ever-popular and zany photo booth to ensure Fringe patrons’ Festival memories were both sweet and fun.

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St. Ambroise Fringe Bar & the Peter Lehmann Wines Stage

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ith Fringe support, the F e s t i v a l ’s touring artists mount their Artists’ Cabaret every year on the Festival’s final Saturday as a fundraiser for the Fringe. Describing the event as a perennial highlight of the Vancouver Fringe is an understatement—it’s unpredictably unique, but always worthwhile to see what these artists get up to when they collaborate on their own terms!

As always, spoken word artist Jem Rolls led the charge, calling the audience to action in their duty to egg on the artists and illuminate the performers with flashlights— the only lighting of the night.

An almost rabidly enthusiastic sold out crowd came together to contribute over $2,500 to support the Festival!

Artists’ Cabaret

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Fringe Awards Night & the Public Market Pick of the Fringe

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he fourth annual Fringe Awards Night once again sold out. Not a single audience member left disappointed after witnessing the improv hilarity hosted by Fringe favourites Peter n’ Chris. The evening officially closed the Festival and culminated in the naming of the popular Public Market Pick of the Fringe Award winners.

These artists enjoyed an extended run at Performance Works. This year, in addition to the sought-after Joanna Maratta Award and the Cultchivating the Fringe Award (in collaboration with The Cultch), the Fringe added four extra spots to the Pick to make room for all of the extra talent at the Festival.

As a special highlight of the evening, our founder, Joanna Maratta, attended to present her namesake award for the first

time. The crowd delivered a spontaneous and extended standing ovation in thanks for her vision and determination!

For the third year, the Fringe and Fringe artists partnered with the Greater Vancouver Food Bank Society. Many artists donated portions of their performance proceeds to the Food Bank and entrance to the Awards Night was by donation to the Food Bank.

Total donations of over $1,900 will allow the Food Bank to provide over $5,700 worth of food for Vancouverites!

All of our 2012 Pick winning shows were very well attended, many of them selling out the new venue, Performance Works.

As a result, Pick attendance was up 25%.

Congratulations to all the Pick winners for winning the hearts of Fringe audiences.

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Plans for the Future

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he Fringe is growing and evolving! We’re working on making the Festival experience richer for audiences and providing opportunities for artists to create new theatre. We’re always looking for sponsors whose goals align with ours. Ultimately, we seek to build stronger relationships with our community, including developing dynamic new site activations. We’re particularly interested in developing national and international platforms for artist exposure. Partner with us to be part of the Fringe’s enterprising future!

OUR VISION Theatre for Everyone OUR MISSION To celebrate theatre and create opportunities for performing artists and audiences