Hello friends,
Here it comes again. Like the Hunger Games, or an annual visit from a huge scary, garishly dressed, circus-obsessed aunt, the Edinburgh Festival season is once again looming on the horizon threatening to block out the sun, and here at Forest Fringe towers* we are starting to try and get ourselves ready. We are scared. We are excited. We are fundraising.
As you might have seen we have started a crowdfunding campaign to try and raise the first half of the total budget we need to rent the flats, hire the lights and print the programmes that will make Forest Fringe happen. We’ve never done a crowdfunding campaign before so our general feeling beforehand was nervous, with a hint of we-don’t-know-what-we’re-doing. However, we have been totally humbled by the immediate response, and the generosity of people who have helped us raise a third of our entire total in just two days. Forest Fringe people are the best of people.
To say a huge thank you to those folk (and to hopefully encourage the rest of you to hop on this, the ricketiest bandwagon in town) we thought you might like a first glimpse of some (but not yet all) of the artists who are going to be performing at Forest Fringe this summer. YES THAT’S RIGHT TEAM THESE ARE THE PEOPLE YOU ARE HELPING TO COME TO EDINBURGH.
In alphabetical order we have:
Action Hero
Bill Aitchison
Brian Lobel
Britt Hatzius
Buzzcut
Caroline Williams
Coney
Christopher Brett Bailey
Deaf and Hearing Ensemble
Deborah Pearson
Dustin Harvey and Adrienne Wong
Eggs Collective
Ellie Stamp
Emma Frankland
Emma Hall
Figs in Wigs
Forced Entertainment
Ira Brand
Jo Bannon
Little Bulb
Made In China
Michael Pinchbeck
Nick Field
Project O
Rosana Cade
Scottee
Search Party
Tania El Khoury
The Media Workshop with The Paper Birds
Sharron Devine
Sheila Ghelani
Stephanie Bruce
Tim Etchells & Aisha Orazbayeva
Verity Standen
Vincent Gambini
And there will be more. And at some point next month we will reveal the things that all these brilliant people are going to be doing. It’s going to be an amazing festival. Full of joy, full of beauty, full of ideas full of righteous anger and unexpected hope and all entirely free. If you can help us make that happen then we’ll be enormously grateful. You can find our crowdfunding campaign here and we hope to see you in Edinburgh in August.
Forest Fringe at Out of the Blue Drill Hall
17-30 August 2015
(*we don’t have a tower. I am writing this from a basement flat in Clapton.)