Fringe productions have been forced to sell their tickets at higher prices than those on the main programme in order to cover their costs and are battling to pull audiences at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown.
National Arts Festival director Lynette Marais said part of the sponsorship money given to the festival committee went toward keeping ticket prices on the main programme as low as possible.
Marais said this was to “allow people to see as much as they can”.
Student discounts were also available for shows on the main programme but not for the fringe.
With less coverage in festival newspaper Cue and without the festival sponsorship that main performances enjoy, fringe productions have been having a hard time of it.
Each producer on the fringe also had to compete against 217 other fringe shows and 215 shows on the main programme.
Producer Kim Muirhead, who has four shows on at the festival this year, said she had invested time and money into her shows with “dissapointing returns”.
“Theatre is business, it’s the same as selling any product.”
Muirhead said business was not good.
One of her productions, Mighty Afri-Deity, impressed acclaimed actor Greig Coetzee but never got a review because the reporter assigned to the show never arrived.
Producer of the one-woman comedy `Scratch’, Shirley Kirchmann, said she played to packed venues last year but had a very slow start this time around.
“There are too many shows and not enough people,” said Kirchmann.
Life on the fringe can be tough, says Marais.
“Performing on the fringe has never been easy but the performers that come back year after year have learnt how to do it successfully.” –ECN Cuewire