Photo by Catherine Jan

We Loved: FringeKids!
Last year, FringeKids got good, acquiring their own club especially for young audiences. But this year, things got awesome, with all-day activities rocking right next to the FringeKids venue — finally out of the library and into the George Ignatieff — unifying both halves of the FringeKids program. In two years, FringeKids has gone from being a bit of a drag (walk to a show; walk back to Bloor for lunch; walk to a show; walk back to Bloor to kill 45 minutes…) to a daylong destination, and with all the consternation over declining audiences, we’re please as punch to see the festival getting this right.

Photo by Dylan George

We Hope For: More Venues!
This year, nearly 700 companies entered the lottery, and this is one of the festival’s biggest successes — but they’re only drawing 130ish winners, and that figure gets more and more disappointing every year. There’s definitely an administrative and technical overhead associated with looping in more venues, but adding the Tranzac — remember the Tranzac? — would bring an additional 10-11 shows to the festival; scoop up the Storefront, that’s another more-or-less dozen, and there’s more where that came from. (If you’ve got the Storefront, the Comedy Bar has two spaces about a block away, and Bad Dog now has a little shoebox, too…) Obviously, we’re never going to get anywhere near 100% participation, but with the Fringe growing every year, can we find room for more?

Continue reading 4 Things we Loved About Fringe 2015; 4 Hopes for 2016 →