I got an email with some thoughts about the Frigne.

Dear Deena Beena,

First of all, thank you for coming to see our show. And thanks for laughing till you "almost peed." That's great news!

I went to Blogging Fringe.com because I wanted to leave my two cents about Fringe. However, I couldn't figure out how to do that. I thought that maybe I would leave them with you and let you post them if you see fit.

Here goes:
My BIGGEST annoyance this year about the whole Fringe experience has been those much too long, pretentious and self-promoting "Fringe Announcements" before every show. ALL THE SAME LOCAL NAMES from years pevious plastered shamelessly EVERYWHERE on those damned things. I think the straw that broke THIS patron's back was the one with the blatant "JAWS" theme in it.

SHAME ON THE FRINGE PRODUCERS for allowing this!

Fringe this year feels like a high school yearbook party where all the SUPERLATIVES are being announced on stage. It's all the popular jocks and bitchy cheerleaders accepting their awards while the band geeks and drama nerds stand by wondering, "Will they ever notice ME...?"

My suggestion for those announcements is to be FAIR. If you are hell-bent on using them to promote local performers, then give EVERY ARTIST the opprtunity to do the same. SELL those intros to us next year. Give the first-timers and the out-of-towners another way to tell folks about OUR little, lesser-known shows. It could be a marketing coup and provide yet one more way to raise money for the Fringe.

This does brings up a point about the preshow announcements. I do think it’s a bit unfair to give local performers the opportunity to advertise their show in an announcement that is played before every show in a venue.

Let’s take a look at the yellow venue. On a week day they will hast 5 shows and on a weekend 7 (on average). We’ll also say on average this 118 seat venue has 100 seats filled (that’s 85%) over the run of the festival that’s 1200 people hearing blurb if you will, a name or sound that is recognized from the Fringe program.

I think it’s more fair if the announcements are done by either past performers or other Fringe people like Terry Olson the founder of the festival, board member or maybe just non descript voices delivering the required announcement.

This is just my opinion and the writers of the email. (I wasn’t sure if they wanted to be identified or not) Discuss please.
Feel free to email me or myspace me if you have something you’d like to bring up!
See you at the Fringe!