How Fringe supports our Artists and how you can support them too!

FRINGE WORLD is driven by our belief that our success is defined by the success of our artists. We are committed to supporting the independent artists that make the Festival happen each year and providing the best possible platform for their work to reach a massive audience. 

As an open-access Festival, anyone can have a go at FRINGE WORLD. The Festival doesn’t curate all the programs occurring across the Fringe and over half of the Festival is not managed by us directly. 

Everyone participating in the Fringe is taking a gamble on whether they’ll have a successful season with almost all of the shows in a box office split deal with their venue. This means the best way to support artists is to buy lots of tickets and encourage all your friends and family to join you in a Fringe Binge! The more shows you see, the more you are supporting the independent artists that perform and present shows in the Festival.

Here is further information about how FRINGE WORLD supports its artists.

How artists get paid

Over $37 million has been paid from audiences to Fringe shows in Perth since 2012 and the 2018 Festival delivered more than $8.6 million in gross box office payments to participants. 

A box office split is the most common financial relationship between venues and shows. This is a deal when part of each ticket that’s sold goes to the venue, and part to the show. This is a means for shows to cover overheads such as technical, production and front of house staff, and equipment costs without needing to pay fees upfront.  It also means the venue is sharing the risk with the artist so is motivated to help market and support the show.

The venues in the Festival are a mix of independent venues and venues that FRINGE WORLD Festival directly manages, including the FRINGE WORLD hubs (i.e. The Woodside Pleasure Garden, The Ice Cream Factory and Yagan Square).

FRINGE WORLD hub venues take 32% of the box office which is modelled at the lowest rate possible for viability. Independent venues and programs set their own box office split deals with artists. Some venues use a flat hire rate. Some venues don’t charge anything and don’t take a cut of box office as they make money from bar and food sales and also like the Fringe exposure and feel good about supporting Fringe artists. 

The payment of box office is managed and reconciled primarily through the FRINGE WORLD ticketing and online registration system. It is usually the independent venue or producer that receives the box office sales through this system and then pays the share owed to the artists. Due to the negative actions of key independent producers in the 2018 Festival that left artists they were working with owed money, FRINGE WORLD invested in changes to this system to ensure artists have the ability to receive box office sales owed to them direct from the Festival, regardless of whether they are in a FRINGE WORLD managed venue or not.

Other artist benefits

All artists participating in the Fringe receive an Artist Pass, which gives artists free entry to FRINGE WORLD ticketed events, (a benefit we believe is unique to any large Fringe Festival anywhere in the world), food, beverage and accommodation discounts at key local businesses plus access to a special artists-only club.

Through our partnerships we are able to support our artists in a range of ways. One of the new partnerships for the 2019 Festival has direct benefit for artists – thanks to Hostel G artists have access to fee and cheap accommodation at the newly opened hostel concept, which provides hotel experience at an affordable price.

FRINGE WORLD also runs an annual Awards program where events can go in the running to win an Award, both in their genre as well as an array of special prize categories. The total prize pool of the FRINGE WORLD Awards is one of the largest of any Fringe in the world and includes the Martin Sims Award for best new WA work. Donations to the Festival’s Fringe Fund help support the Awards each year.

Most importantly, FRINGE WORLD is a marketing platform that is proud of its success in creating an audience for Fringe shows in Perth that is now the third largest of any Fringe in the world. The Festival is focused and dedicated on continuing to create the most fertile ground possible for Fringe shows to reach new audiences.