PRESS RELEASE For immediate release – October 28th 2021
Buxton Fringe has revealed that this year’s festival provided a significant boost to the town with combined audience and performer spending resulting in a nearly £200,000 contribution to the local economy.
The estimated figure was £197,726 including expenditure from performers during their stay in Buxton plus audience spend on food, accommodation and ticket sales for shows by local performers. This very conservative estimate does not include Fringe organisers’ additional local expenditure on printing, design and Fringe Information Desk wages amongst other costs.
Results of the Fringe’s audience survey showed that 82% of respondents gave an approval rate of 4 or 5 out of 5. Audience feedback was overwhelmingly supportive with respondents to the Fringe’s audience survey delighted that the Fringe had been able to go ahead with live events this year. Comments included: “Fantastic that you have been able to put on the festival despite all the challenges”, “Good fringe in socially distanced times. All venues safe and well organised” and “Your superhuman effort to run the Fringe is greatly appreciated”, amongst many other compliments. There was also praise for the newly relocated Fringe Information Desk in the Pavilion Gardens and its “excellent help”.
The entrants’ survey was equally positive with performers praising the Fringe for “wonderful support as usual” and describing Buxton as an “intimate, relaxed environment where the community really gets behind the Fringe and supports it”.
The Fringe continues to prove a big draw for Buxton with just under half of audience respondents coming from outside the SK area; visitors hailed from all over the UK including Cambridge, London, Belfast and Devon.
In the month of July the busy Fringe website received 807,453 total hits, almost as many as in 2019’s bumper Fringe40 year. The Fringe App was also well used and applauded for its easy display of daily what’s on information.
19% of audience survey respondents were attending the Fringe for the first time, but there was also evidence of audience loyalty with 43% having been coming for between two and 9 years and 38% having been attending the Fringe for over 10 years.
Music, Comedy and Theatre were particularly well represented at this year’s Fringe and the 111 total number of events also included 11 events that were online. Some, like The Shakespeare Jukebox, were hybrid events with both live performances and an online component, suggesting that the nature of Fringe entertainment is evolving in fascinating new ways.
Fringe chair Stephen Walker comments: “It was a huge achievement to put on a Festival as the country was still under social distancing restrictions, and we are proud of our role in helping to kickstart the town's economic recovery.”
The Fringe committee plans to build on audience and entrants’ suggestions for the future and thanks everyone who filled in its surveys.
Next year’s Fringe is already being planned. Dates have been set as July 6-24 2022 with the Fringe website www.buxtonfringe.org.uk opening for entries on December 1 and a discounted entry fee of £50 available until the end of February.
Performers, audiences and supporters are invited to meet the Fringe Team at the open-to-all AGM Wednesday November 17th at 7 for 7.30pm at the Green Man Gallery, Buxton. RSVP to Send message to Info
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