Fresh as daisies

The first Cape Town Fringe is underway. It’s happening. It hasn’t been easy. New city, new venues, new audience, all sorts of things that have never been tested before.

Starting on a blank sheet is always intimidating. But the shows are showing, people are watching, the fringe club at the city hall is serving drinks and coffee, the box office is selling (although, Capetonians, you better wake up and start getting your tickets – try not to do the usual thing and start wondering about going to fringe shows the day after it’s all packed up).

A lot of things were dropped into the place at the last second (like this blog, for instance) and National Arts Festival CEO Tony Lankester doesn’t mind admitting it’s been “learning experience”. Forty years of running festival in Grahamstown equates to expertise, which the NAF team have put to good use, but also infrastructure, even if it is creaky. In Grahamstown they know which individuals to speak to to get things done. Cape Town is another matter (and he didn’t say so, but we’re so wrapped up in red tape it can be difficult to move).
“We’ve stretched ourselves in all sorts of directions,” says Lankester.
But it’s all there now, and ready for the ride.

Having checked out fringe festivals in other cities, like Amsterdam, for instance, NAF have taken some tips. One of them is creating a hub, a “centre of gravity”, and that’s what’s been set up in the city hall. Coffee, drinks, wi-fi, various hi-jinks will be happening there.
They’ve also paired up with Uber taxis and if you hook up Uber on your phone with Fringe 2014 you get R200 credit, so that’s pretty cool. That alone should give you a couple of nights out without worrying about drinking more than a beer-and-a-half.

One kief thing they’ve thought up all on their own is organising about 1000 school kids from areas like Grassy Park and Hanover Park and Lavender Hill to spend time in the city hall, see a show, participate in a workshop, have lunch and see another show.
There’s hardly any exposure to arts in most schools so these kids will get to see what it’s all about, and how fantastic theatre can be. It’s pretty certain a few of them will be inspired, become lovers of theatre, perhaps the next generation of thespians.

The City of Cape Town put R2.7m funding into the Cape Town Fringe, an amount the city’s arts and culture manager Zayd Minty said mayor Patricia de Lille was happy to sign off.
“When the National Arts Festival said they wanted to do a fringe festival in the city, it was the easiest decision to make,” said Minty at the morning press conference.
“De Lille was: ‘fine, let’s go for it’.”

He said the city was “excited at the opportunities the event provides” and it fitted in with their plan to host cultural events that would bring tourists to the city during the off-season.
It would help Cape Town achieve its vision of becoming a “global city”.
The city’s committed to three years of funding – provided fringe meets certain benchmarks – and hopefully it’ll run for a lot longer than that.

Anneke Jansen, director of the Amsterdam Fringe which wrapped up it’s 11 days of amazing on 14 September, was impressed with the set up on day 1.
“It feels like it’s been going for ages already.”
But we’re fresh as daisies. (koff, koff)