I Chose My Winnipeg Fringe Adventure!

People had been telling me for years that the Winnipeg Fringe is the jewel in the crown of the Canadian Fringe circuit, that the population of the city turns out in their thousands to fill the theatres, that the audiences are curious and adventurous, that they will show up en masse to see shows by folks they’ve never heard of. I even read, in a guidebook published in 2022, that theatregoers should hurry to snatch up tickets for any show that gets a 4- or 5-star review, as it’s sure to eventually sell out.

     So, it was with a degree of measured hope (I’m not given to unrealistic flights of fancy) that I went to the Winnipeg Fringe for the very first time. I’ve performed at many of the Fringes across Canada, and several in England, and have been invited five times (it’s by invitation, not lottery) to the Prague Fringe. But never to Winnipeg. Every Fringe performer wants to do their show there, which means a lot of applicants, which means your chances in the lottery are relatively slim. But finally, in 2025, I got in. I applied to two other Fringes in western Canada, but didn’t get in to those. No matter, I’d succeeded where it counted!

     I’d performed my show, outside, in the laneway, under the stars, at six previous festivals, in 2023 and 2024, only one of which was in Canada. It had been well received in those places, winning prizes at two of them (including the Canadian one). But, based on everything I’d heard, Winnipeg, surely, would be the place where it would be most warmly embraced!

     Things started off slowly. Opening night, a handful of people came. (And I do mean a handful: one ticket sold, plus four comps.) Okay, I thought, it was an unenviable performance slot, 9:30 p.m. on a Thursday evening. In fact, a wonderful opportunity to have a kind of “dress rehearsal” on the stage, in a theatre that seemed huge to me (the Planetarium Auditorium).

     Things continued slowly for my second show: two people in a very good time slot on Saturday!

     A few days later, after things had continued in much the same way, a 5-star review in the Free Press! By this point, I’d done four of my seven shows, to minuscule audiences. Surely, now, things would pick up.

     The next show, I had three audience members, two of whom were volunteers and the other a fellow performer. In other words, no income at all.

     The final weekend, things did indeed pick up: an average of 15 for each show (including comps). In total, over the twelve days of the Fringe, my show sold 43 tickets. That works out to an average of six per show.

     I’m having trouble processing all this, which has provoked an experience of “cognitive dissonance.” I can’t seem to come up with an explanation that makes sense of all I’ve heard and read in the past, placed against my own experience.

     Admittedly, my show was longer than the 60-minute Fringe ideal (it was 75 minutes). And I actually presented it as two stand-alone “linked shows” with a common theme. So there were actually two shows, but they stood independently. This may have turned some people off.

     Still, that doesn’t seem to account adequately for my failure in Winnipeg. I did have some lovely times in the city: cocktails with a friend, a fab Indian lunch with other friends, a gorgeous gluten-free beer at the Forks, peaceful walks along the riverside. But I fear my enduring memory of Winnipeg will be standing on stage telling my story of bullying, queerness, and a youthful flight from hard reality into the arms of the theatre, and wondering if there was actually anyone in this particular theatre to hear it.

     As for what I took away on a more material level (never my top priority, but there are bills to pay), I made back 52.4 percent of the fees I paid to get into the festival. So I’ll have to pick up the tab for the return airfare from Montreal to Winnipeg, the accommodation, the flyers and posters, and the remaining half of the festival lottery and participation fees.

     As I keep telling myself, these are first-world problems.

 

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I hope this doesn’t sound like sour grapes, but if it does, it does.

If I were to attempt to remove myself from the equation and look at the situation objectively, I would mention that I talked to a few other perfomers who were also disappointed (although their audience numbers were ones I would have died for once I saw the writing on the wall).

     Perhaps the Winnipeg Fringe is becoming a victim of its own success? When a Fringe has a huge audience to draw on, it tends to grow (viz., the Edinburgh and Brighton Fringes). When a Fringe grows in terms of the number of shows but the audiences remain stable in overall numbers (or even shrink, post-pandemic and in a world where young people are more used to being entertained online), the average audience shrinks in size. It’s just math.

     Maybe it’s that.

     That said, the audience numbers at the ten shows I went to see were pretty healthy, and even flourishing. Cognitive dissonance, as I mentioned. (When your last audience numbered 3, an audience of 25 looks great, and an audience of well over a hundred looks like a dream.)

     One Fringe performer. One very particular Fringe adventure.

     Maybe the reality of performing a 75-minute, one-man, prize-winning, 5-star-reviewed show to three people in a 235-seat theatre at a festival renowned for its large audience numbers—and all the feelings and memories and thoughts that experience throws up—can form the subject of my next Fringe show. I doubt, though, I’ll be able to take it to Winnipeg.