NZ Fringe has spent the last 35 years building a reputation for being a bold, brave and innovative arts festival.
It’s different to other curated arts festivals in that it is “open-access” which means that anyone can register an event, with no gate-keeping. This allows for a bold, creative energy to permeate the festival with a huge diversity of events on offer. One of the best things about NZ Fringe is that audiences are able to witness the birth of “the next big thing”—it really is the Birthplace of Brilliance. You’ll see events you loved, events that moved or challenged you and events that are so creative that they’re impossible to describe (those are the best!).
NZ Fringe, also known at times as the Wellington Fringe or just FRINGE!, started in 1990 when a group of performance makers came home from a trip to the mighty Edinburgh Fringe in Scotland and loudly proclaimed “we need some of that too!”. With the help of the NZ Festival (then known as The New Zealand International Festival of the Arts) Fringe was born as a one-week festival within a festival, in its ideal home: BATS Theatre. The festival quickly grew from there and established itself as a key player in the Aotearoa arts ecosystem, not just for its role as a launchpad for artists’ careers, but also for Wellington’s culture-loving audiences! It’s pretty remarkable that since the 1990s, NZ Fringe has evolved and grown to the scale it is now, with hundreds of events making it the largest open-access multidisciplinary arts festival in Aotearoa. Tu meke!
NZ Fringe is run by the not-for-profit Creative Capital Arts Trust, who also bring Pōneke audiences the free street arts festival, CubaDupa. We rely heavily on our wonderful sponsors and funding partners who support us to keep bringing creative magic to Wellington every year.
Our small team is exhilarated to have delivered a fantastic 2024 season this year, check out some highlights below:
1️⃣ A total of 168 Productions held a massive 590 performances and 89 World Premieres over the festival’s three-week season.
2️⃣ With over 900 artists from more than 22 countries and work spanning 25 genres of art, there was a hugely diverse selection of events that lit up the city with talent.
3️⃣ 48 performance spaces took part in bringing NZ Fringe to Pōneke audiences and enabled artists to present their work all across the city.
4️⃣ The 2024 festival brought in a huge array of talent as well as 21,150 tickets sold, and multiple free events.
5️⃣ Over $362,000 in ticket sales plus $190,000 in funding, totalling $552K into the Pōneke arts economy!
6️⃣ Saturday 17 Feb saw the best daily ticket sales in the 34-year history of NZ Fringe—over $15K!
7️⃣ 441 “Ticket +” tickets were sold, for an additional $3,050 worth of revenue going directly to artists, donated by audiences.
8️⃣ The 3 best-selling spaces were Tapere Nui at Te Auaha, Fringe Bar, and Hannah Playhouse in that order.
