Sydney Fringe Festival Will Go On As Platform For Recovery For the Arts

Sydney Fringe Festival, New South Wales' largest independent arts festival, announced today that the 2020 Festival will go ahead, playing a crucial role in creating income-generating opportunities for Sydney's creative sectors in the wake of COVID-19.

Fringe CEO and Creative Director Kerri Glasscock said, "The creative sector has registered a loss of more than $200 million in income since Friday 13 March due to the cancellation of events and presently Sydney's artists, technicians and venue staff are looking to suffer a terrible six months between now and September, with their work opportunities screeching to a halt. Sydney Fringe is committed to being here for them, creating income-generating opportunities once Spring is here. There's no question, come September, this stimulus and celebration of culture is exactly what Sydney will need. There are so many reasons that our show must go on!

The positive economic impact of Sydney Fringe 2019 was to inject $11,939,441 into the Sydney economy, with $660,000 crucially going to artists during the month of Fringe. 2019 saw Sydneysiders attend 498 Fringe events across 25 postcodes, with all of the flow-on effects to small business. With an enormous amount of culture happening in small to medium venues right across the city and greater Sydney, Fringe stages events that are perfectly sized for the people of Sydney to safely venture out to reclaim their city.

Glasscock added, "Drawing on over a decade of experience, as evidenced by our An Anthology of Space report, we are readily positioned to bring this city some much-needed hope. This is the time for our extensive report findings to be put into action allowing Sydney Fringe, with the help of our partners, to continue to do what we do best - revitalise and sustain the city's crucial creative sector against all odds."

Launched in 2018, Sydney Fringe's extensive 94-page report An Anthology of Space outlines prohibitive restrictions preventing Sydney's creative sectors from activating empty industrial warehouse spaces and retail shopfronts, posing much-needed solutions to overcome the onerous red tape it says is strangling Sydney's creative sectors.