Bath Fringe Festival 2011
Bath Fringe Festival is a 17-day festival from Friday May 27 to Sunday June 12, 2011. There will be around 200 events in every art-form the organisers can think of; music, comedy, theatre, visual arts, street arts, kids events, dance, outdoor events, free events, and the list goes on.
From the official website - "The History of Bath Fringe"
The origins of Bath Fringe go back to the sideshows which sprang up around important Temple festivals before and during the Roman Occupation, to the street fairs that surrounded the Abbey for the coronation of Edgar in 959... Well obviously we can't trace that exactly, of course, but it's worth remembering that Bath has been a town of arts, visitors, travelling performers, even before the Georgian era that our Heritage Industry makes so much of.
It makes more sense to trace the Fringe back to the Bath Festivals of Blues & Progressive Music of '69 & '70, but the connections to the current crew are a little tenuous, so let's say the real start were the Walcot Festivals of the '70s & 'early 80s, mostly run by a community group called Bath Arts Workshop - the name still exists for the company that runs the Natural Theatre Company of Bath.
In 2000 we commissioned a project to put some material about these festivals on-line at www.walcotstreet.com. These events were inspirational, some of their perpetrators now pillars of the alternative establishment locally and nationally; the Fringe's Walcot Nation Day (now sadly in abeyance, see this page) and our continued Walcot community events are a homage and acknowledgement of how important that all was and is to the Spirit of Festival and to Bath.
Around the end of the Walcot Festivals (things change, people get tired and move on...) it was recognised more widely that there was a great deal that people wanted to experience and celebrate that wasn't covered by the classical music centred Bath Festival, and a Bath Fringe was set up with the support of the then city council in 1981, with dates related to those of the 'main' festival but an independent organisation (Bath Arts Association) and a lively interest in many more artforms. There was financial support, at least for staff, available under various Community Programme initiatives in arts and, ah, community events, but with political shifts and internal developments those resources dwindled over the next decade to the barest handful of events.
A group of local promoters and artists were unwilling to let the idea die, and constituted a new group in 1991 to promote a festival that same year. That group, Bath Fringe Ltd., is a cooperative, and still includes promoters, artists, performers, venue volunteers, and audience members. It was briefly, at council request, funded through Bath Festivals Trust, but the arrangement didn't work out and the Fringe retained its full independence. Many of the bigger Fringe events have their own dedicated volunteer team and run their own affairs under the Fringe 'banner' and couldn't be done any other way: see other material about FAB Fringe Visual Arts, Fringe Art Fair, Children's Festival, Bedlam Fair street performance, etc. Local council support has always been part of the picture, although this has got more difficult now councils have less money and more call on it; the festival has also always been equally dependent on sponsorship, outside grants, much volunteer work and local goodwill – this is good for us, it keeps us very connected with our audience and other parts of the community as well as national institutions.
Getting Involved
If you want to volunteer to help Bath Fringe, if you have a show, event or concert that you want to put on or if you want to donate to help keep the festival going, then there are buttons on the website that can get you involved.
There are mailing lists and social media links to keep you in touch of developments and news.
Anything you don't see, put it on yourself!
Booking Information and contact details links to Bath Fringe 2011
Website: Bath Fringe 2011
Ticket Information: Bath Fringe 2011 Booking
Want to perform?: Putting on a show
Want to volunteer?: Volunteer
Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
