Fringe Fest Gets Down to Business - Bryan Colley
Posted: Thu, Jun 28 2007, 1:47 PM

Two years ago, the Minnesota Fringe invited all of the United States fringe festival directors to converge in Minneapolis. Cheryl Kimmi had just organized Kansas City’s first fringe festival and attended the meeting. There she met Beth Marshall, the producing artistic director of the Orlando Fringe Festival in Florida and vice president of the Canadian Association of Fringe Festivals.

Marshall began her acting career in Kansas City as a graduate of Stephens College in Columbia. According to Kimmi, “She was immensely interested in what we were doing here. She has maintained close communication with many theatre folk here in Kansas City and has acted at the Unicorn, American Heartland, Coterie, Theatre for Young Audiences, and Martin City Melodrama. We shared our challenges, frustrations, and success at the U.S. Fringe Festival meetings and helped each other strategize and plan.”

She met with Marshall again in Florida, and earlier this year Marshall became a consultant for the third annual K.C. Fringe Festival. Kimmi explained, “We had been planning the artist workshop for two or three months ahead of time. Already aware of some of our challenges and of my frustrations, she offered to meet with the K.C. Fringe board. I provided a copy of our financials for her evaluation and gave her a detailed tour of all of our locations. We’ve had multiple in-depth interviews about our festival’s successes and challenges.”

Marshall’s first recommendation was to pay artists 100 percent of ticket sales. In the past, artists received only 60 percent, with 30 percent going to the venue, and 10 percent to the Fringe Festival. This year, artists will receive 70 percent and the venues 30 percent. The goal for next year is to meet the 100 percent goal for artists. This will not only make the Fringe Festival more attractive for performers, but will allow the Fringe Festival to become a member of the Canadian Association of Fringe Festivals – the largest fringe festival circuit in the world. It will allow several participants in the Canadian Fringe to make Kansas City one of their stops in the summer and draw in a lot more visiting events. Marshall also recommended that artists be allowed to set their own ticket fee within a predetermined range.

Here are some of the other changes and major events we can expect to see this year’s Fringe Festival:

• One of the most high profile events will be a series of performances by visitors from Kurashiki, our sister city in Japan. They will be bringing over 500 people to perform music, dance, and provide martial arts demonstrations at Crown Center.
  
• Festival organizers have worked hard to concentrate performance venues into “pods”, or a cluster of venues within walking distance of each other. According to Marshall, this is one of the things that will help with the growth of artists, attendance, security, and community awareness. Finding such clusters of venues is proving difficult in the downtown K.C., which lacks a true theatre district. One of the new pods this year will be in the River Market area.
  
• The Fringe Festival has acquired several new and notable partners, including The Kansas City Star, Urban Times, Flying Monkey Beer in Olathe, and Pepsi Co. Pepsi will even be concocting a special beverage just for the Fringe Festival.
  
• ESPN, one of the new sponsors, will host an X-Games BMX exhibit.
  
• Festival activities will end at midnight, but late night jam sessions will continue at the Mutual Musicians Foundation at 18th and Vine. People with Fringe buttons will get discounted admission.
  
• Fringe Central and the fashion show will now be located indoors.

The third annual Kansas City Fringe Festival will be held from July 26-29. For more information, visit www.kcfringe.org.