Vancouver Fringe Festival receives $520,000 investment from Canadian Heritage

Earlier this year, a successful 40th anniversary fundraiser helped pull the organization out of financial uncertainty

Vancouver Fringe Festival celebrated 40 years at its event on Granville Island last September.

CANADIAN HERITAGE HAS announced a $520,000 investment in the Vancouver Fringe Festival Society.

Vancouver Granville MP Taleeb Noormohamed, Parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage, made the announcement today on Granville Island, where the fest is headquartered.

The Canada Arts Presentation Fund support spans the next two years, including $300,000 in direct supplemental support as part of Budget 2024. It came from an additional $31 million in supplemental funding from 2024 to 2026 for the Canada Arts Presentation Fund to help support professional arts presenters and series.

Vancouver Fringe executive director Duncan Watts-Grant said the new investment was essential to help the fest pull fully out of the effects of the pandemic after a close financial call earlier this year.

“As the second-oldest fringe festival on the continent, the Vancouver Fringe Festival is dedicated to supporting artists,” he said in the announcement today. “This funding from the Government of Canada plays a vital role in our ongoing recovery from the impacts of the pandemic and will directly benefit independent and emerging artists in advancing their artistry and careers."

Like festivals around the country, the Fringe has struggled with increasing costs and decreasing donations and sponsorships since COVID shutdowns ended. In May of this year, the Fringe Festival announced it would have to cut its programming by a third for 2024, launching a fundraiser amid financial uncertainty. At that point, the organization that returns 100 percent of ticket profits to artists had to raise $80,000 by May 31 to continue running. “Since 2022, we’ve been drawing on our savings to produce the Festival, and this isn’t sustainable,” Watts-Grant said at the time.

But by the time the Fringe announced its 40th anniversary programming for this past September’s installment of the festival, it had raised enough support to host a bigger event than expected, with a program that spanned 74 companies.

"The Vancouver Fringe Theatre Society plays an essential role in nurturing British Columbia's performing arts community, providing a diverse stage for independent artists and performers as well as emerging talent,” Noormohamed said in the announcement today.

Featured

Janet Smith

Janet Smith is founding partner and editorial director of Stir. She is an award-winning arts journalist who has spent more than two decades immersed in Vancouver’s dance, screen, design, theatre, music, opera, and gallery scenes. She sits on the Vancouver Film Critics’ Circle.

Articles

With fresh adaptation (a) Winter’s Tale, two well-known theatre talents launch The Ecstasy

Colleen Wheeler and Moya O’Connell have gathered a crack team of actors for micro-sized Shakespearean shows at the City Centre Artist Lodge—and this is only the beginning

Comedy review: Improv Centre’s agile cast conjures ’90s holiday TV specials in ’Tis the Sitcom

With audiences supplying the laugh track, the days of “Must-See TV” return in a different form every night, with heartfelt moments arising among hilarious period-correct details

East Van Panto: West Van Story gets an extended run thanks to overwhelming popularity

Theatre Replacement’s nearly sold-out holiday tradition continues at The Cultch’s York Theatre to January 11

Even after a century and a half, Little Women continues to capture emotions of both actors and audiences

Director Barbara Tomasic talks about the Arts Club Theatre Company’s new production of the Louisa May Alcott classic, which still inspires heartfelt reflection on sibling bonds and the challenges of finding a place in the world

Theatre review: East Van Panto: West Van Story serves up a so-Vancouver villain for the ages

Dawn Petten’s megadeveloper slays in a show with pumped-up song-and-dance numbers, subversive satire, and standout performances

Theatre review: Cue the chaos as Burnout Paradise entices an audience to pitch in together

Amid the laughter and DIY signs, Pony Cam show at The Cultch captures a world where we can’t step off the ever-racing treadmill

Holiday shows 2025: Stir’s ultimate guide to Vancouver’s merriest performances and events

The local arts and culture scene has bright gifts in store this season, from music by candlelight to wintry ballets

Joylyn Secunda plays a portal-hopping office worker in surreal solo show The Routine, November 22 and 23

At Studio 16, artist weaves mime and clown components in vignettes that explore a person’s search for the meaning of life

Theatre review: Between Breaths honours the stubborn dignity of a man devoted to saving whales

Artistic Fraud production portrays the joys and griefs of Jon Lien, a pioneering Newfoundland conservationist whose challenges included a late-life struggle with dementia

Metro Theatre hosts annual holiday pantomime Jack and the Beanstalk, December 12 to January 4, 2026

Shel Piercy directs the delightfully silly show full of colourful sets and sparkling costumes

Burnout Paradise runs its performers ragged at The Cultch, November 20 to December 7

Cheer on Pony Cam as chaotic treadmill performance captures the mad rush of life

Playwrights Pedro Chamale and Marcus Youssef joyfully throw jabs in all directions in East Van Panto: West Van Story

Duo complicates East-West rivalries and draws on everything from Shakespeare to Gen Alpha slang in a music- and dance-filled installment of the Theatre Replacement tradition

Gateway Theatre hosts holiday musical Annie, December 11 to January 3

Story follows little orphan Annie as she escapes the cruel Miss Hannigan’s rule and sets out on a search for her parents

Theatre review: Faye’s Room resists easy answers about autism and the human struggle for empathy

In this candid Glitch Theatre production, first-time playwright Alex K. Masse creates an open-hearted, often funny encounter between young neurodivergent and neurotypical co-workers

Performers and audience find bigger, brighter, braver selves in kids’ show Parents Are a Drag

Carousel Theatre for Young People brings back a hit celebration of drag that juggles song, education, dress-up, and play

Theatre review: Frozen’s wintry spell carries the magic of the Disney original

With sparkling effects and powerful performances, the Arts Club Theatre Company’s production of the beloved musical captures imaginations of young audience members

Theatre review: The Effect packs powerful doses of dark humour and difficult truth

Rumble Theatre and ITSAZOO’s sleek production of an unsettling, uncanny drama by Lucy Prebble explores our choices in a pharmaceutical-driven world

Theatre review: Festive warmth fills witty Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley

With Jane Austen’s 250th birthday, Metro Theatre offers a Pride and Prejudice sequel in which a long-overlooked member of one of literature’s most famous families finds love

Stir Q&A: Between Breaths tells the true story of a Newfoundland man who rescued over 500 whales

Artistic Fraud production at the Firehall Arts Centre centres on conservationist Jon Lien’s powerful work and eventual battle with dementia

Arts Club and Touchstone Theatre lead winners at Jessie Richardson Theatre Awards

Casey and Diana, Burning Mom, Behind the Moon, and Yaga shared the spotlight with prizes for Bard on the Beach’s The Dark Lady, Theatre for Young Audience category’s Otosan, Small Budget dominator The Sound Inside, and much more

Dance Nation traces vulnerability and narcissism of preteen competitive dancers, November 13 to 23

The Search Party’s hilariously offbeat theatre production gets a remount at the Anvil Theatre

At Chutzpah! Festival, 8 Gays of Channukah sparkles with songs and stories of togetherness in troubling times

Performers Gila Münster, Yan Simon, and Sarah Freia bring their diverse talents and individuality to a glittering celebration of queerness and representation

Stir Q&A: Dark thriller The Effect probes the crossover between authentic feelings and chemical manipulation

Presented by Rumble Theatre and ITSAZOO Productions, Lucy Prebble’s play is about two people who fall in love after testing a dopamine-regulating drug

Curious Cats serve up a fateful night of laughter and tears in The Best Restaurant in the World. Ever.

For its second production, the company turns to an expanded version of the award-winning play by Rick Dobran that became a Fringe favourite back in the days of Y2K

New from Glitch Theatre, Faye’s Room shines the spotlight on lived experiences of autism

Emerging playwright Alex K. Masse depicts challenges and changing views of neurodivergence with a story that is both deeply personal and reflective of society-wide shifts

Theatrical triple bill spotlights stories of motherhood at the Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival, November 5 to 7

To Mum With Love, XO features plays by seasoned fringe artists Jonathon Paterson, Jacques Lalonde, and Jim Sands

Theatre review: CTORA conjures Roald Dahl’s playful magic in James and the Giant Peach

Imaginative puppetry and powerhouse performances embody the wicked wit and heartfelt emotion of a classic children’s tale

Gertrude and Alice is both a great love story and a look at language and the act of creation

Director Lois Anderson talks about legendary 20th-century partners Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, portrayed in a production by Western Gold Theatre in partnership with Touchstone Theatre and in association with United Players of Vancouver.