How to Plan Your Fringe Festival Attendance

I upped my game

Arts Festivals have overlapping events. Meanwhile information about shows, artists are often non-existant, limited, or obscure.

Every year for 6 years, the Fringe Festival passed me by. I never got ahead of planning and by the time I heard word-of-mouth recommendations, tickets would be sold out.

Last year, Year 7, I said no more! I massively upped my game for attending last year's Philly Fringe Festival and it's still paying off. I saw/participated in 13 events over the 5 weeks. My success rate was 77%, meaning I'd recommend them. And, I have developed a set of local artists whose work I see all year long.

The 2023 Philly Fringe is coming September 7-24, and I offer you my planning spreadsheet and approach. Don't sleep on it! Your future self will thank you!

How to plan

Pore over the catalog (1 hour)
The month before the Fringe begins, get a copy of the festival catalog. Free hard copies are well distrubuted at all kinds of local arts venues too. I prefer a hard copy where I can leave post-its and dog-ears. It was relaxing/fun to set aside a weekend morning to thumb through a magazine with some tea and mark everything that looked even a little interesting.
Investigate and narrow list (time tbd)
Google your selected artists. Best case they will have an Instagram with some video snippets of past shows. Performance or artist blurbs are often very cryptic and don't provide much information. I want to see if I'm remotely attracted to their past work. I circled probably 30 shows, and narrowed it 50%.
Attend Fringe Previews (optional)
These shows are free but require reservation because of limited seating. I attended just one, but would go to more of them next time. I was exposed to shows I didn't necessarily mark in my catalog but then wanted to see. Plus, watching the preview put me in the mood to see more performance art! Doubled down.
Make your time matrix spreadsheet (30 mins)
Listing out all possible showtimes in a matrix makes it obvious when you can see each show. There's usually enough showtimes to make it work. If you've got a Fringe friend crew, you can cross check calendars.
Buy your tickets online (10 mins)
Shows definitely sell out. I like committing myself to the Fringe by buying my tickets early in bulk. This puts my laborious planning into motion and saves me from my future self who often tries to make excuses. Just do the thing and fogeddaboutit!

Lasting Impact

For the rest of the year, I regularly saw performance art. The Fringe exposed me to local artists whose future shows I attended in Philly and virtually.

In particular, I found out about artist Alexandra Tatarsky. By planning, I caught their early Fringe show that only had 3 viewings. I loved their absurdist solo act which I can best describe as exploring the edges of what it means to be a clown. I sheepishly introduced some friends to Tatarsky's future work, because how do you casually explain a 1-woman demonic jewish clown show? To my delight, their passion matched mine and one of my pals Talya even did this amazing interview with Tatarsky for The Jewish Daily Forward, afterward. Spreading the love!

If you're raring to nerd out on the Philly Fringe this year, don't be shy to hit me up to see some shows together!