Brighton Fringe’s first week has come to an end, and what a week it’s been. Venues were finally able to open their doors after a year (or more) without audiences; and performers on stages across the city spoke of how relieved they were to be back in front of real life people again. Digital events also started their festival runs, beaming events from South Africa, The Netherlands and beyond on to our screens.
At Brighton Fringe HQ we had been cautiously optimistic about the return of Brighton Fringe. We knew, having spoken to our audiences regularly over the past 18 months, that there was a hunger to return to live performances once it was safe and legal to do so – but the way you have flooded back has exceed our expectations.
We are delighted to announce that by the end of the first week of the festival we had met our box office targets for the whole festival, selling over £250,000 worth of tickets through our box office alone.
Brighton Fringe CEO Julian Caddy said: “The enthusiasm has been overwhelming and the scale of the sales has taken us all by surprise. I’d like to thank everyone involved at Brighton Fringe for their incredibly hard work in getting everything together and also of course our audiences for having faith in us that we can deliver live performance safely, whilst also offering a massive selection of online work as well. There are still 5 weeks left of Brighton Fringe activity though so make sure you enjoy it while you can!”
We look forward to continuing to #CelebrateFringe with you this summer. Brighton Fringe runs from 28 May – 27 June, with some venues running until 11 July.