Overview
The Sydney Fringe Festival will be transforming its own headquarters as part of the 2014 program, turning it into a three-level bar, theatre, info point and communal crafternoon gathering space. 'The Campground' at 5 Eliza Street, Newtown will serve as one of the hubs for a full month of comedy, cabaret, circus, theatre, music, art and out-of-the-ordinary events. The other hub? Well, for that you'll have to go exploring.
"[Last year's hub] Emerald City was great but this year we moved to a new creative vision for the festival that we feel suits the geography and energy of Sydney better," festival director Kerri Glasscock tells us. "Instead of creating the traditional static festival garden [or] hub we wanted to create a roaming hub that moved throughout the festival, highlighting a number of different precincts and encouraging festival-goers to explore more of the city and keep it fresh."
To that end, laneway hubs will take over a different part of town each weekend. We're particularly looking forward to seeing Darlinghurst's Foley Lane come over all Montemartre, with jazz and swing music, street performers and crepes, but Newtown's King Street and Sydenham's Faversham Street are also scheduled to throw multi-day bashes.
Back at the more stationary Campground, each of the three levels has been given a mission and a name — 'the Tent', 'the Campfire' and 'the Annex'. Downstairs in the Tent is where to hide away to drink, view the exhibition on the walls and gather Fringe-related information, while upstairs at the Campfire is the place to tell stories, with artist talks, performances and sketching and snow globe-making workshops the order of the day. On the top floor is the Emerging Artist Annex, a 60-seat pop-up theatre for some of the festival's newcomers.
"We wanted a space where the general public could come and experience art making, no matter what your skill level, be it hobby or master," says Glasscock. "So we have created mini spaces within the Campground where you can come and draw, knit or participate in a crafternoon."
The four weeks of the program revolve around loose themes — Inner City in week one; Community, Ideas and Laughs in week two; family in week three; and something juicily titled 'The Final Frontier' in week four. "We wanted to engage as many practising local artists as possible and encourage as many partnerships and collaborations as possible," says Glasscock. "The festival offers a unique opportunity to try out an idea that has been brewing or work with a fellow artist you have wanted to collaborate with."
Unlike some of the big fringe festivals of the world, the Sydney Fringe has always been open to anyone who wants to put on a work, which has sometimes resulted in a mixed bag of experiences for people. But Glasscock thinks they may have a solution to that, while still keeping the festival's open-access ethos.
"We like to say that we don't curate the art but we curate where it goes," she says. "This is a new approach to the festival this year and has so far worked really well. It means that care has been taken to place the right content in the right venue so hopefully it is a better experience for the artists, the venues and the punters."
Venues this year range from the perennial Factory Theatre to Freda's, Giant Dwarf, the Glebe Justice Centre, Rookwood Cemetery, the Record Crate and Venue 505. Opening the festival is the Ignite Launch Party on August 31, curated by Potbelleez Ilan Kidron and winding its way down Crown Street. The Fringe continues until September 30, and its full program is now available on the festival website.