Melbourne Fringe Festival 2022
Last year’s Melbourne Fringe Festival had 126 shows in total, with 87 online and the rest partly IRL, albeit socially distanced. Not bad for a last-minute pivot.
But it’s full steam ahead for 2022, as the festival celebrates its 40th anniversary with the theme “It’s About Time”: a fitting message for the first properly in-person Fringe program since 2019. This might also be its biggest outing ever, with more than 450 events from independent artists around the country, a new “art park”, plus the return of the beloved Fringe Parade & Lygon St Block Party.
Runaway Festival Park pops up at Queen Victoria Market with a spiegeltent and performance dome for cabaret, live comedy, experimental circus and children’s entertainment, while the Festival Hub and Club Fringe return to Trades Hall with more than 100 performances.
Over at the State Library, a major new exhibition and sound installation looks back on 40 years of Melbourne Fringe Festival, and imagines the next 40. Entry is free. And in the library’s forecourt, a sprawling rain drum is being installed, and you can play just by walking on it.
Fringe is also heading south side, with a special hub called So Soiree popping up in Grattan Gardens for performances and shows. And a 200-strong choir will be singing new works – written and performed in real-time – at Prahran Square.
The First Nations program – called Deadly Fringe – explores concepts of time and includes an immersive art event on Fitzroy’s Gertrude Street that brings augmented reality app Yalinguth to life.
Plus, a program of experimental live art for children called XS, a participatory public artwork where you can play with one of 16 spinning musical buckets in Fed Square, a live yabby-fishing (and eating) restaurant in Collingwood Yards, an intimate performance by dancers with Down syndrome, Meatloaf-themed karaoke, a drag show over dumplings, and more.
Over half of this year’s shows are led by LGBTQI+ artists, while artists with disability make up some 13 per cent of the program.
Tickets to all events are on sale now.
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