Gareth McMillan, Festival Director, announces the cancellation of the 2020 Dunedin Fringe Festival.
‘The Dunedin Fringe Arts Trust board and I met tonight and made the decision to cancel this year’s festival. With the
escalation of the outbreak to community transmission within Dunedin we feel this is the best option. We have recommended
that all independently produced events under the Fringe umbrella also cancel their scheduled performances and
exhibitions.
‘We’re devastated for our community. The Dunedin Fringe is one of the largest arts festival in the country and
represents thousands of hours of work from more than 750 creative practitioners. As contractors, they will be severely
impacted now and in coming months; as will the wider sector including technicians, venues, suppliers and everyone who
relies on a vibrant entertainment industry.
‘As an organisation we will do whatever possible to support arts practitioners through these challenging times,
including offering the limited financial resources we have available. During this temporary time of social distancing we
believe connectedness is more important than ever. Therefore we are investigating ways of hosting a digital fringe
festival to enable a ‘virtual gathering’ and create an opportunity to raise money for affected artists. Additional
information will be released as plans develop.
‘We wish to thank all ticket purchasers for supporting the Fringe Festival. For cancelled events, the ticket provider
will contact purchasers and offer them the opportunity to be refunded. Alternatively, people may choose to donate this
back to the artist and we encourage this option if at all possible. In the event that an independent event chooses to
proceed or reschedule tickets it might be possible to transfer existing tickets to this event with further details to be
made available.
‘We’d also like to take the opportunity to thank all of our funders and supporters. This is not the 20th birthday party
we had planned but the Dunedin Fringe will be back next year and it will be better than ever.’