(There is an option to make a monthly recurring donation. Please consider this option if you can.)
Thank you so much!!
Our Covid Story
With heavy hearts, we had to to notify our audience that the 2020 Pittsburgh Fringe, scheduled for April 2-5, has been canceled. All tickets, buttons, passes and artists had to be refunded. The timing was unfortunate in that it was only about 2 weeks out from our festival start date, and we had already put in months of work, and paid for print and many of our regular expenses. We were able to save some money by not doing the festival, but we lost ALL our income by not doing our festival. Again, this year to help artists we decided to not charge artists any fees. In our mission to help and aid artists, we feel they have bee particularly hard hit by this pandemic, and we don't want to put any further burden on them this year. We also let artists set up their own ticketing, so they can immediately get the funds in their own bank accounts the way they want it. So buying a ticket directly helps the artist 100% this year.
Each year we help about 200 artists put on 50 different shows. As an accessible festival that gives ALL artist a platform, we are a vital part of the artistic ecosystem. For some artists fringes are a part of their overall income strategy. For some part time artists, it is their only opportunity each year to show off their work. For all artists it is a place they know their art will always be accepted, even if no one else believes in them yet.
If you have the means to help, please help us continue to help artists. We know we can assist more artists with each dollar you give. In our organization, each dollar goes a long way. With one of the smallest festival budgets in Pittsburgh, and one of the smallest art budgets in Pittsburgh, our organization really packs a powerful punch in artistic impact per dollar. Our festival in 2019 had about 100 performances/events of 50 different titled shows in just 4 days. Even our Virtual Festival is one of the first virtual festivals of this size with 20 productions in 2 days. And this year our 2021 Virtual Festival has over 50 different performances during our 4 day festival.
We know not everyone can help, and that is OK. We don't want anyone to burden themselves helping us. But if you do have a few spare dollars to share with us, we will be able to continue to help the artists that we as a society need more than ever today.