Minnesota Fringe announced a new attendance record today. For the first time in the festival’s 17-year history, over 50,000 tickets were issued to the annual performing arts festival.
In all, the festival saw an attendance increase of 8.7 percent over last year with 50,256 tickets issued from Aug. 5 through Aug. 15. Nearly 17,000 festival admission buttons were issued in 2010 compared to last year’s 15,267.
Festival revenue jumped 12.9 percent from last year. The festival’s 169 productions earned over $355,000 in ticket sales during the festival’s 11 days. A total of 56 performances presented by 25 productions sold out.
“This year’s Fringe was hands-down the best,” said executive director Robin C. Gillette. “From every angle, the 2010 Fringe was outstanding. We broke a lot of records, we saw a surge of new audience members and the quality of the shows was stunning.”
“Looking at the lists of top shows, it’s a broad and deep representation of the festival’s offerings,” she said. “There’s comedy, there’s taiko, there’s dance, there are first-time producers, there are veterans, there are companies from outside Minnesota.”
“It’s a credit to our audience,” said Gillette. “People come to Fringe open to anything. Audiences embrace risk during the festival and it’s wonderful to watch a company go from unknown quantity to Fringe favorite in just a few days.”
“As an organization, we’re profoundly grateful to the people who made this possible: the artists, the audiences, the volunteers,” she said. “These numbers confirm that the people of Minnesota love this festival and we love Minnesota right back.”
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