Pittsburgh Fringe

We are a small and newer festival in the Bloomfield, Garfield, East Liberty area of Pittsburgh on Penn Avenue. The 2025 festival will be our 12th anniversary. All our venues in a walkable footprint up and down the Penn Avenue corridor, which is also has easy bus access, and rentable bikes up and down the corridor. We are now doing the Edinburgh model of festival, and help you connect with your independent venues. Our venues include galleries, tea shops, coffee shops, hotels, yoga studios, punk rock venus, and community spaces.

Pittsburgh Fringe Website

Festival Overview

Type of Festival

We are a small festival in the Bloomfield, Garfield, East Liberty area of Pittsburgh on Penn Avenue. The 2025 festival will be our 12th anniversary. All our venues in a walkable footprint up and down the Penn Avenue corridor, which is also has easy bus access, and rentable bikes up and down the corridor. We are now doing the Edinburgh model of festival, and help you connect with your independent venues. Our venues include galleries, tea shops, coffee shops, hotels, yoga studios, punk rock venues, and community spaces.

About our Audience

As we come back from our covid virtual festivals to in person (our dates and location required us to be virtual for 3 years, and limit to locals for 1 year), we feel like we are starting from scratch with our local audiences. So the audience is still quite small.

Festival Stats

Length of Festival: 4 Days in 2019
Number of Productions: 49 in 2019
Overall Performances: 100 in 2019
Number of Performance Spaces: 9 venues and 10 spaces in 2019
Ticket Price Range: $0-$15 in 2019

Current stats are off due to the covid years, but we try to get back to the 2019 number. We do now have tickets $0-20.

Artist Information

How Artists are Accepted

Performing artists apply online in the fall. Visual artists apply in the winter online.

Artists apply to get into the system. Once an artist applies we help them find a venue. We are now on the Edinburgh model (also like Rochester, Philly and Hollywood Fringes), so shows need to find their own venues in the Festival Footprint (we help a lot with this). If you find a space to perform - you just need to finish by register for the festival program, and you're all sorted!

Benefits of Applying

Awards System: We are trying to make arrangements to reintroduce an award system for the festival, but nothing is currently confirmed.

Reviews Situation: While we can never guarantee reviews, we work with Fringe Review to get as many shows reviewed as possible.

Billeting Situation: We are trying to re-establish a billeting situation, but currently can make no promises.

Artist Comp Policy: Completely free on a stand-by basis

Costs and Deals

Application Fee: $35
Registration Fee : $0-$135 in 2025
Venue: Artists make arrangements with the venue themselves. But typical rentals were $50-$100 per performance for straight rentals for example, or some had a cheaper flat fee with some % of sales.

Festival collects 15% of ticket sales to help run the festival.

Other fees: If you need tech, or any additional services. If you want ads or additional marketing there may be extra fees.

Tech Information

Each venue will be different, and you need to work out your tech needs with the venue when booking. Venues can be just in a tea shop or coffee shop, which may have almost no tech, or a some might have a very basic light and sound set up in other venues.

You can also feel free to find your own venue in the festival footprint, and do whatever you want!

Performance Schedule

This is up to the performer and the venue. Some venues need to work around selling coffee or other activities in the space, some dedicate a space for the festival for the whole festival time. Most venues are flexible with slot length, but be sure to confirm if it includes or doesn't include get in and get out time.

You can also feel free to find your own venue in the festival footprint, and do whatever you want!

Other

We like to be very clear that we are a small fringe, and are still building our audience. We are rarely a profitable festival for shows, especially those coming from out of town. But we are at the beginning of the year, and many shows like to use us for awards and reviews to kick off their tours, and try out new work. Just make sure you know why you are coming, and that you are clear on the limitations of our festival. We would love to have you at our fringe!

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Basic area in 2019
Penn Ave.
Pittsburgh, PA 15212
(Don't mail us here, it isn't a proper address, but a guide to understand where we basically are during festival time.)

"Pittsburgh was particularly recognized for its arts, museums, food, drink and sports teams. Shout-outs went to the Warhol Museum, the National Aviary, the Cathedral of Learning, the Benedum Center and Rivers Casino." 19th Most Livable City Article in Post Gazette

WWW.PITTSBURGHFRINGE.ORG

Important Dates for this Fringe

2025 - Current Year

Festival Dates

March 20-29, 2025

Application Dates

Similar to Edinburgh, we have deadlines that close certain aspects of marketing. However, if a show can still find a venue, they are always welcome to still join our festival until right before the festival.

Other Important Dates

We will have other deadlines for advertisements and brochures. Please see the website or emails for more details.

2019 - Past Year for Perspective

Festival Dates

April 4-7, 2019

Application Dates

Opened in November, and closed by start of festival. However, there was an early deadline to save lots of money on January 15th. (Might be moved up in the future.)