Curated by and for the Blind Community!
The 2024 Vancouver Fringe Festival is celebrating its 40th Anniversary! This year’s festival runs from September 5 to 15 and features 73 different productions in more than a dozen venues on Granville Island.
Part of the Fringe Fest fun is going to as many shows as you can in a day. This year, we’re trying something new to make that multi-show experience more accessible. We’ve hired a panel of Blind and Partially Sighted curators and asked them to create a Low Vision Friendly Fringe schedule for community members. Low Vision Friendly shows are recommended as being mostly accessible without description.
VocalEye curators have gone through the entire Fringe schedule of 73 shows and have come up with a Full On LVF Fringe Weekend adventure that includes one show with VocalEye live description (Lip Service 3: Live in Concert)!
Tickets
Access the Fringe with VocalEye and enjoy exclusive ticket discounts on Saturday, September 14 and Sunday, September 15 (show schedules below). You can go Full On with 4 shows per day for $35 or create your own Fringe mini-adventure for $10 per person per show (regular price $15 to $18). Admission includes priority seating and a complimentary Fringe Membership ($10 value). Theatre Buddy sighted guides are also available.
Please book your Access Fringe tickets using the link below, or contact info@vocaleye.ca or call 604-364-5949
Access Fringe Schedule
Select up to 4 shows per day, with your choice of one asterisked show per day.
Venues include Performance Works, Waterfront Theatre, Revue Stage, Arts Umbrella, Improv Centre
Saturday, September 14, 2024
- B the Wiz & O’ROSE present A Storytelling Hip-Hop Experience at 2 pm (30 min)
- God’s a Drag at 3:15 pm (65 min)
(dinner break) - *James Roque: Champorado at 5:55 pm (60 min)
OR
* Jimmy Hogg: Potato King at 6 pm (60 min) - How to Catch a Karen at 7:40 pm (50 min)
Sat Sep 14 Show Descriptions pdf
Sunday, September 15, 2024
- A Woman’s Guide to Peeing Outside at 12:30 pm (60 min)
(lunch break) - Lip Service 3: Live In Concert, with audio description at 3:15 pm (60 min)
- A Smoke Behind the Rope at 5 pm (60 min)
(dinner break) - The ADHD Project at 7:30 pm (60 min)
Sun Sep 15 Show Descriptions pdf
(note: The Hummingbird has been cancelled)
Vancouver Fringe Festival
The Vancouver Fringe Theatre Society was formed in 1983 by a group of local artists who had a common goal: to provide a platform for independent artists. The society held its first Fringe Festival in 1985. We now hold the annual Vancouver Fringe Festival every September.
We foster a community of independent and emerging performing artists as part of the Fringe circuit that tours across North America. We are committed to breaking traditional barriers and offering a welcoming and accessible setting for audiences of diverse backgrounds to experience the magic of live performance. Through the lottery draw, we create a radically welcoming space where everyone can be an artist.
The Vancouver Fringe has operated on and around Granville Island since 2001. Over 11 days, we showcase unique art and create a community where everyone is united by a shared love for the art of performance. Today the festival sees 12,000 attendees and is facilitated by over 350 volunteers who graciously support the Fringe. Our Fringe is a place where lifelong friendships and connections are formed, whether you’re mingling at the Fringe bar or queuing up for a show.
The Vancouver Fringe aims to be a home for artists and audiences alike and to create space for art, joy, community, and belonging.
What is a Fringe Festival?
Fringe Festivals serve as an inclusive space for all artists, whether emerging or established, providing a space for them to showcase their work. Artists pay a nominal fee to participate, but receive subsidies that cover the remainder of costs. Artists also receive all the profits from ticket sales. This ‘artist-first’ approach fosters an environment of true creativity and experimentation.
The Fringe movement started in Edinburgh in 1947 as an uncurated festival where anyone could be an artist. Fringes came to North America in 1982, first in Edmonton AB, and then Vancouver in 1985. Canadian Fringes now select the participating artists by a lottery draw. This method aims to reduce gatekeeping, improve equity, and create space for independent artists.
Canadian Fringe Festivals are all part of the Canadian Association of Fringe Festivals, a membership organization that holds the trademark for the word ‘Fringe’ in Canada and supports the 32 Member Festivals across Canada and the USA.
VocalEye Community Curators
Our Fringe Curators will be attending dozens of shows throughout the Festival and sending us their reviews. You’ll find those on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter during the Festival.
Amy Amantea is a white settler on the stolen lands of the Squamish, Musqueam and Tsleil-waututh first peoples. Living with blindness, dyslexia, chronic pain, and chronic illness, Amy aims to increase representation of disability within the Canadian theatre landscape. Her background is in acting having attended VFS and private acting academies before her sight loss. Amy has had to reinvent herself as a performer and has integrated access, advocacy and activism into her own artistic practice. As a Creative Access Consultant and Accessibility Strategist, Amy works with individual artists, small creative teams and larger organizations on increasing access within projects, festival environments and organization culture change – all in relation to access and inclusion for patrons of the arts, artists and arts workers.
Deborah Fong has been a member of the Mainstreeters, an artists collective involved with performances, multimedia and visual arts in the past. Previously, she worked in the communications field as a graphic designer, editor, and writer for over 35 years. Deb became legally-blind 15 years ago. Since then, she has worked with VocalEye at five Vancouver Fringe Festivals as an accessibility consultant where she wrote KickAss reviews that included how accessible productions, venues and logistics were for blind or low vision patrons.
“I love the Fringe because I can immerse myself in a wide variety of theatre from lively musicals and hilarious comedies to insightful storytelling and riveting dramas. And all within walking distance of one another. The venues are as varied as the genres, including cabaret-style theatre with tables and chairs, dance studios and outdoor spaces. I have been to five Vancouver Fringe Festivals and have enjoyed many full days of fun, innovative and entertaining performances.”
Kristy Kassie is a certified English and ESL Instructor, published creative writer and amateur rock painter originally from Trinidad and Tobago. She lives in New Westminster. Born on the ancestral land of the Aruaca and Carib-speaking people, she recognizes and respects that New Westminster is on the unceded and unsurrendered land of the Halkomelem speaking peoples. She acknowledges that colonialism has made invisible their histories and connections to the land. She is humbled and appreciative to call these stolen lands home.
“A Vancouver Fringe Festival adventure can begin with Humboldt squid and jalapeño mayo, chocolate Oreo cheesecake and red sangria. Or a burger and tater tots with a beer, if that’s more your style. You can spend a couple hours with great colleagues exchanging fun stories on a sunny patio, then walk to a theatre to experience animated storytelling, comedic musicals or thought-provoking, interactive sketches. This was me last year when I checked out How to be Japanese: Your Normal is Not My Normal. It was so cool that the slides used were made accessible for people who are blind and partially-sighted.
Vancouver Fringe means a good friend doesn’t have to twist your arm to turn a one show evening into a two show evening. Enjoyed a delicious falafel bowl between Shawshank: The Musical at PerformanceWorks and Let’s Talk About Your Death at Arts Umbrella. Ended the night at the Fringe Bar drinking tequila shots and coolers. Realized we know way more people than we thought. Vancouver Fringe rocks!”