Minnesota Fringe and Minnesota Nice

HowlRound: The Minnesota Fringe (MN Fringe) Festival is the largest nonjuried festival in the United States where this year an estimated 16,493 people were in attendance. Every applicant pays a non-refundable twenty five dollars application fee in exchange for a numbered ping-pong ball that might be plucked at a public lottery. This year the lottery was structured into two categories: a small venue category for a theater containing one hundred seats or fewer or a regular venue that could have over three hundred seats. I first attended the Fringe three years ago when I purchased a five show punch and painstakingly picked five shows. The second year I volunteered about twenty shifts and saw about twenty shows. This year, I had a press pass and saw forty two. Of the one hundred and seventy six shows performing at sixteen venues over the course of eleven days, it is only humanly possible to see fifty six. As I bicycled from venue to venue, and what seemed to be at the time a never-ending stream of performances, I began to wonder how would I cover the festival? I ruled out making a best of/worst article because that coverage is already present elsewhere and doesn’t address fundamental questions that emerged from the festival. - See more at: http://www.howlround.com/minnesota-fringe-and-minnesota-nice#sthash.l7ugLstE.dpuf