Average Fringe Show Price 2009

I compiled some stats on what it will cost you to see a Fringe show this year. Some shows give discounts for students/seniors/other not reflected in this chart. Keep in mind there is a $2 service fee on top of the price below.

Among the 89 shows:

$9: 60% of shows
$8: 28%
$7: 7%
$6: 3% <—- Awkward Centaur
$5: 2%

Only 5 shows this year are charging $6 or less.

Fringe-for-all 2009 in Review

Your 2 minutes at the Fringe-for-all is the worst 2 minutes of the Fringe–it’s the biggest chattiest audience, the worst cavernous venue, and the most critic-filled. (The worst critic is me, hee hee) So it’s great to see when some people knock their chance out of the park.

2 standouts for me were As Duas: two women in their underwear (natch) tossing each other around rather artfully, athletically, and uh, let’s face it, erotically; and Terminal: a guy in a suit dancing to a pleasant Lou Reed song while slitting his wrists.

There were also many many terrible terrible acts which I will not name. My 2-minute bit was probably first or second quintile just by virtue of the fact that I used a microphone. (High praise, I know.) Seriously, people, you can’t out-yell the chatty McChattersons at the Cafe Campus. Anything talky does not work.

Thanks to the Fringe staff for seeking out people in the audience to call me because the show was running 30 minutes fast due to last-second drop-outs. I had to hightail my heinie over there and was almost immediately thrown onstage.

So here was my bit for Awkward Centaur. Since it’s hard to convey the essence of our improvised play about a centaur in 2 minutes, I wrote and performed a song about centaurs. It was filmed from the balcony with all the Chatcats and Talkybots. To my relief, sometimes the laughter from the lower deck rises above the chatter. Oh, the last note gets cut off cause the battery ran out of juice:

EDITED TO ADD: Ah, the Fringe has a much better version:

Advice for future fringers:

• Use dance, music, physicality or video for the Fringe-for-all
• If you’re talking, always use a microphone. Walk around with hand-held mics if you insist on doing a scene. Do not speak without amplification. You can’t yell louder than 300 people chatting about how they can’t hear you above the chatter.
• Try to avoid complicated props, sound or video cues if possible
• Don’t pretend like you’re going to get naked, and then not. That’s lame.