About

The Dunedin Fringe Festival is the only fringe festival in the South Island of New Zealand. Initiated in 2000 the Dunedin Fringe aims to bring innovative contemporary art to a wider audience and to support the work of emerging artists. The Dunedin Fringe is an annual Festival in late March timed to coincide with the Wellington, Auckland and Adelaide Fringe Festivals.

The Dunedin Fringe Festival attracts artists from throughout New Zealand and overseas with a healthy mix of established and emerging artists. Dunedin embraced the 2012 Dunedin Fringe Festival with over 13,000 people attending artist and Festival produced events. The Festival programme primarily features independently produced events by artists plus a handful of special events run by Festival staff. We also book and manage several key venues to ensure an action-packed core programme with a diversity of high quality events.

Independent artist events form the backbone of the Dunedin Fringe Festival and are facilitated through an open-access registration process. This takes place in November each year with New Zealand artists able to apply to the Festival for funding grants to develop new work or to tour a work to Dunedin. In 2012, 45% of our events were from outside Dunedin. This represents a massive injection of creativity into Dunedin and a grand opportunity for audiences.

The Fringe Trust

The Dunedin Fringe is produced by a non-profit charitable organization called the Dunedin Fringe Arts Trust. Established in April 2004 the Fringe Trust works closely with staff to produce the Festival and a number of other activities in Dunedin.

Current trustees

Warren Taylor (Chairman)
Scott Muir (Deputy Chair)
Stephen Hall-Jones (Secretary)
Donna Cameron (Treasurer)
Cecelia Leonard
Anja Klinkert
Martyn Roberts
Aaron Hawkins

Staff

The Fringe Trust employs staff to run the Festival as well as other events. If you are interested in working for the Trust please send your CV to the Festival Director via the contact page.

Current Staff

Director: Paul Smith
Administrator: Stephanie Dyer
Production Manager: Don Hunter
Volunteer Coordinator: Sharon Singer
Publicist: Ben Blakely
Events Assistant: Briar Holt
Promotions Assistant: Koen Naulaerts