By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca

Amazingly, it’s August. And Find Your Fringe has found you, fellow Fringe adventurers.

Find Your Fringe, the 43rd annual edition of the Edmonton International Fringe Theatre Festival.

Tickets go on sale at noon today for the 43rd annual edition of Edmonton’s international summer theatre extravaganza, the continent’s biggest and oldest Fringe (Aug. 15 to 25). The routes through the 216-indoor show universe of this year’s Fringe are yours to discover — no, create — as they’ve always been in this Edmonton invention that transformed fringe from noun to (very) active verb. And there’s more than one road to tickets, too.

You can order them online at fringetheatre.ca (and get e-tickets in your inbox). You can call (780-409-1910). You can show up in person at the Fringe’s central box office at Fringe HQ in the Fringe Theatre Arts Barns (10330 84 Ave.) or the EAC (Edmonton Arts Council) shop and service outlet downtown (9930 102 Ave.). And when the festivities start, you can also pick up tickets at a couple of other Fringe box offices — 83rd Ave. and 104th St. next to ATB (aka the Gazebo) Park, or at La Cité francophone (8627 91 St.) in the French Quarter. Note, there isn’t a Fringe box office at Theatre Network this year.

To help support 12thnight.ca YEG theatre coverage, click here.

After many years in a holding pattern, the top ticket price went up by 2 bucks last summer. It’s up again by a toonie this summer, to $20 (the prices you see in the program are all-inclusive). Fringe artists set their own ticket price, to a $15 max, and take home 100 per cent of ticket sales. And the festival collects a service fee on top. In a year of struggle for the arts (critical escalation of production costs and dwindling sponsorships), the Fringe’s per ticket service fee is $5 max (up from last year’s $3) on a top-price $15 ticket. For ticket prices that are less, the Fringe’s service fee is reduced too,  and can be as little as $2 depending on the ticket price selected by artists, according to Fringe organizers.

As you’ll see from the program, either online or in glorious 3—D i(n the $15 152-page high-gloss Fringe guide), most artists have opted for the $20 max. And who can blame them? But there are exceptions. Tickets for Linda Wood Edwards’ new comedy/drama I, Diana are $18 (students and seniors $12), for example; for Spin Cycle $12. The Empress of Blandings’ anniversary production of the Moliere comedy The Flying Doctor is $15 (with $10 tickets for students and seniors). And of the four shows at the “young audiences” venue, the Edmonton Public Library Strathcona Branch, three have a top price less than $20.

The best deal for the bargain Fringe explorer is the Frequent Fringer pass ($160 for 10 tickets) and the Double Fringer pass ($320 for 20 tickets). But they get snapped up in a blink, so hustle is required. Many shows offer discounts for seniors and students. And there are daily discounts too, as determined by artists (the sales are in-person only, but check out the available discounted shows on the day at fringetheatre.ca. And here’s something new: the $20 Champion Pass. Once you buy one (online, in person, or on the phone) you get $5 off a full-price ticket to performances that opt into the program (identifiable by a Fringe badge on their website show image). So it pays for itself after four Champion performances.   

You’ll be Finding your Fringe and “doing it your way,” as the theme puts it alluringly, in a profusion of choices. The 216 ticketed shows are to be found in 38 venues, 10 of them official Fringe theatres programmed by lottery (up from 8 last year), and 28 of them BYOVs, bring-your-own-venues acquired and outfitted by artists themselves. As with the number of shows (last year 185) this is palpable growth, but not a wild topsy-turvy escalation from the year before (Fringe Theatre executive director Megan Dart has talked before of “incremental growth” and this seems like an example).

The two new additions to the Fringe’s roster of official lottery-programmed venues have both been festival venues in summers of yore. One is the Strathcona library, now the “young audiences” destination, mere steps away from the central Fringe box office. The other is the Granite Curling Club, the new home of the Fringe’s own invariably sold-out Late Night Cabaret. For 13 years, this hit midnight show, different every night, has been turning insomniac Fringers away at the Backstage Theatre. This move to a larger venue is, quite literally, by popular demand.

You can find Fringe shows in actual theatres, among them Fringe Theatre’s Backstage, Studio, and Westbury; the Varscona; the Gateway; Walterdale; Theatre Network’s Nancy Power mainstage; Rapid Fire’s Exchange Theatre. But many of the venues have other lives, as bars or dance clubs, churches, auditoriums, cabarets. There’s even a show (Sherlock Holmes Experience: The Incendiary Incident) that sends you forth from the Fringe’s garbage container, 221B Baker Street.

The artist-run BYOVs are mostly, but not all, in Old Strathcona. Three are across the river downtown, for example: CKUA, Evolution Wonderlounge, and (no kidding), the Citadel boardroom.

There’s a cluster of four Fringe “theatres” in the French Quarter, with 29 shows among them inside La Cité francophone and across the street at Campus Saint-Jean (hold this tantalizing thought: Le Café bicyclette). The Grindstone Comedy Club, a crazily busy little venue on 81 Ave., has curated a 32-show Fringe presence happening in four venues, including the Luther Centre across the street and Mile Zero’s Dance headquarters. Strathcona’s Holy Trinity Church houses 15 shows in its three BYOV venues.

Starting Friday August 16, the KidsFringe is back in Light Horse Park (10325 84 Ave.), with all sorts of activities and shows for the under-12 set and their grown-up companions. It’s curated by the indefatigable Alyson Dicey of Girl Brain. And it’s all free. Check out the schedule and show descriptions in the program.

There are outdoor performances. There’s a music series on the ATB outdoor stage (aka the Gazebo Park), on both Fringe weekends at 9 and 10 p.m., curated by the indie star Lindsey Walker. There are (as if it needed saying) beer tents. Tthe Fringe’s official beer? Sea Change.

Which brings us to the eternal Fringe question, the one that never loses its lustre. What to see? It is, of course, your Fringe To Find. But 12thnight.ca can help with that. Stay tuned to this site for encouragement, suggestions, previews, features, and reviews.

And if you enjoy the theatre coverage on my free (so far) and independent site 12thnight.ca worthwhile and entertaining, I am really hoping you’ll be able to chip in to my ongoing Patreon campaign, with a monthly contribution, no matter how modest, to support its continuation. 12thnight.ca is solely supported by its readers. Click here.