It’s August, which means the Culture sections of all the newspapers are full of the Edinburgh Fringe.
But have you heard of the Shaftesbury Fringe?
We had no idea this annual event existed when we moved here. Even when we started seeing the signs go up for the first time we took some convincing. A Fringe? In Shaftesbury?
Well, yes.
Our first Fringe was in 2021, just as the world was finding its feet after the height of the pandemic. We dived into it headfirst. Over 3 days we took in 22 performances: 12 musical acts, 5 comics, 2 poets, 1 dance group, 1 talk, and 1 sound bath (is a sound bath a performance?).
We were exhausted, but exhilarated.
And we were hooked!
The Shaftesbury Fringe is now a major, not-to-be-missed, event in our calendar. We build our July plans around it. We’ve kept our attendance rate up pretty well too:
- 24 acts in 2022
- a bit less than that in 2023 thanks to a lot of rain
- 24 again this year
Bonus feature: not only is there a huge amount of joy to be had from a bewildering array of acts, it’s so conveniently close to home. You can pop back for a jumper, or even a nap, between events. Useful.
The biggest Shaftesbury Fringe so far
2024 was a record breaker, with around 130 acts giving 240 performances in over 30 venues. That’s both absolutely brilliant and a devastating source of FOMO – for every 1 thing I get to see, there’s another 9 that I can’t!
We enjoyed choirs, solo singers, duos, trios, whole bands and instrumentalists. Sea shanties, folk, country, pop, rock, African beats and jazz. Originals, covers and startling songs. Standup, puns and ukelele-based humour (that last really doesn’t do justice to the winners of Best Comic Act, Plastic Jeezus). Some magnificent magic. And, in the spirit of the Fringe, a man trying to break the record for singing and playing Beatles requests while hanging upside down.
We didn’t manage much spoken word this time – poetry and whatnot – but we’re already planning to fix that next year.
Why we love the Fringe
Shaftesbury’s a fairly quiet town, albeit with a lot going on through the year – regular markets, food festivals, fun runs and fun bike rides, the Gold Hill cheese race, an autumn carnival, the Arts Centre, all kinds of concerts and plenty of talks (by the way, check out the ones organised by the folks at Folde). Not forgetting the various fetes and festivals in the surrounding villages.
But on the Fringe weekend it really comes to life. Instead of one or two events, we’re awash with things to do and people doing them.
In the lovely weather, visitors wandered between venues, stopping into cafes and pubs, or taking advantage of the food and drink trucks on Park Walk.
Everyone seems happy. Performers get to do what they love, sometimes to sparsely-attended venues, and other times turning them away at the door. Audiences have a great time, most of the time; you can’t win ‘em all.
That’s all part of the Fringe spirit too – give it a go! You never know what you might find. The Fringe encourages a sense of adventure. From previous years we now have enduring favourites that we return to every year. And we’re always trying out new ones.
Be careful who you’re friends with or you’ll end up “volunteering”
Inevitably we got roped into volunteering this year by our friend Rose, who is on the small but brilliant organising committee. Judging by how many mutual friends also showed up for a shift, it’s an occupational (communal?) hazard of knowing Rose.
The job description is basically mooching around, thrusting programmes and stickers into people’s hands, giving directions and spreading bonhomie.
Actually, I was two-timing on the volunteering front. We had a lot of events at the Arts Centre, so I did a bit of front of house there too. Happily, that coincided with two separate brunch performances by the wonderful Belle Street, which meant a little bonus prosecco for the workers.
Do you want a sticker?
If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my volunteering role, it’s that children REALLY like stickers!
You pretty quickly get to recognise the look on the tiny faces. Either there’s an outright hungry stare, a shy intensity or a not very believable show of insouciance.
No matter the look, the answer to the question “do you want a sticker?” is, 99.99 per cent of the time, a “yes” or at least a happy nod. I’ve never felt so popular.
Same again next year
Next year’s dates are already in the diary: 18 to 20 July 2025. We’ll be there.
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