Reading Fringe Festival to Return for In Person Event this Fall

Reading Fringe Festival returns in-person this autumn for the first time in three years

The Reading Fringe Festival was formed in 2012, and in ten years, we have established ourselves as a vital fixture in both the Reading cultural calendar and the national fringe festival programme.

In 2020, we offered artists a digital platform via Reading Fringe Digital, reaching 13,000 households online, across six continents. This was after a steady rise in success of our real-life festival, celebrating a 60% year-on-year increase in ticket sales. Across the last decade we've been proud and excited to share with you 100s of events including cabaret, dance, theatre, comedy, music, spoken word, children's shows and much more.

We took a pause in 2021 to make plans to celebrate 10 years of this amazing festival and the strong connections we have made with venues, partners, audiences and artists - and now we can announce that we're back to celebrate a decade of Reading Fringe Festival, all packed into three days, guaranteed to brighten the last weekend of October!

In 2022, the theme of Reading Fringe Festival will be THIS IS US, and it perfectly suits the sense of community that the fringe has always celebrated. As fringe director Zsuzsi Lindsay explains: 'We're so proud of what the festival has achieved in the last ten years, and it was amazing to see so many artists and creatives come together to share their work for us for Reading Fringe Digital. Now, as we come back together: both in real life, and online - we're really excited about the new stories Reading can share in the next ten years, and beyond.'

Fringe producer Sarah Stuffins agrees: 'We've never been away, not really! All of us have been busy behind the scenes preparing for Fringe '22, and I can't wait to see the brilliant new experiences that we're going to be bringing to Reading!'

The Reading Fringe Festival 2022 runs from Friday 28th - Sunday 30th October. The website will launch with a new look in Spring, with acts to be confirmed throughout the summer. Keep following the Fringe on Instagram (reading_fringe_festival), Twitter (@Rdgfringefest) and Facebook (@RdgFringeFest) for news and updates.