Fringe Unforgettable, the 45th annual edition of our big summer theatre binge: Tickets go on sale today!

Today’s the day, fellow fringers. Your Fringe memory vault opens for advance deposits.

It’s August, amazingly. And tickets and passes for go on sale this very day for Fringe Unforgettable, the 45th annual edition (Aug. 13 to 23) of Edmonton’s mighty 11-day and -night international summer theatre bash, the continent’s biggest and longest-running fringe of its kind.

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When the portal to ‘unforgettable’ opens at 10 a.m. (in person) and noon (online and on the phone), you can land tickets to some 209 indoor shows, in 38 venues mostly, but not exclusively, in Old Strathcona.

There are multiple routes to Fringe Unforgettable tickets: you can show up in-person at the central Fringe box office at festival HQ in the Fringe Arts Barns (10330 84 Ave.), or Edmonton Arts Council’s downtown Shop/Services (9930 102Ave.). You can order online, fringetheatre.ca, and get e-tickets in your inbox. You can phone (780-409-1910) and talk to someone enthusiastic. When the fringing begins Aug. 13, you can get a ticket in person at any of the on-site box offices.

The top ticket price for a Fringe show, which has held steady since the summer of 2024, is still $20, all in. Fringe artists set their own ticket price, to $15 tops, and take home 100 per cent of that. And the Fringe adds a $5 service charge (reduced when the ticket price is less than the max). The best deal for fringers is a non-transferable Frequent Fringer Pass ($170 for 10 tickets) or a Double Fringer Pass ($340 for 20). They’re very limited-edition, and much coveted, so don’t dawdle.

Flipping through the Fringe guide, either the weighty $15 152-page print edition or online, reveals that most artists go for the max (and no wonder, it’s been a tough year for indie artists, and heck, the arts in general). But as usual there are exceptions, and frequently, special discounts for students and seniors. You can see Dirty Fish Theatre’s Shrute and Tungsta, for example, for $15 (students and seniors $10. Tickets for Walrus or for Espresso: Burlesque are $12 (students and seniors $10). Each day of the festival, some shows offer “daily discount tickets,” online (fringetheatre.ca/daily-discount) or in person.

Soon, very soon, you’ll find yourself in a Fringelandia of 209 indoor shows happening, in assorted configurations, in 38 venues. Ten, housing some 80 shows, are official, i.e. run and equipped by the Fringe, and programmed by lottery. Among them is the Granite Curling Club (Stage #9) where, among other shows, the Fringe’s hit late-night Cabaret happens at midnight, a different show every night, curated by Jake Tkaczyk. The other 129 Fringe shows are in 28 BYOVs, bring-your-own-venues — rented, equipped, and run by artists themselves.

Mostly, they’re in Old Strathcona (where the Fringe origin story began in 1982, Brian Paisley’s bright idea). Many are recent “converts,” so to speak, to being theatres, with other lives as bistros, cabarets, clubs, church halls, dance studios, meeting rooms, a rooftop patio, a high school, a college auditorium, a ballroom. But some of them have jobs as actual theatres, like the Varscona, the Playhouse, the Rapid Fire Exchange, or the two stages at Theatre Network’s Roxy Theatre on 124th Street.

In addition to the Roxy, there are shows at the ArtsHub Ortona in the river valley, the CKUA Performance Space downtown on Jasper Ave., the Woodcroft Hall in the Westmount part of town.

There are 18 Fringe shows at the three BYOVs in the French quarter, and — good news, the free shuttle between the main site and La Cité francophone is back (ah, proximity to the Cafe Bicyclette, need I say more?). Grindstone Comedy Theatre curates 24 shows in its three BYOVs. And at arts-loving Holy Trinity Anglican Church, 15 shows occupy its three stages (the church has a menu of snacks).

Pêhonân (nêhiyawêwin for “meeting place) is an Indigenous-led Fringe initiative with art and artists, performances, knowledge-sharing, storytelling, programming led by the Fringe’s engaging Indigenous Director MJ Belcourt Moses. The heart of it is a welcoming community of tipis in the green space south of the King Edward Park Community League.

The free KidsFringe, for kids 12 and under, is back, with a curated lineup of music, games, theatre, activities, storytelling, music that drew an audience of 14,000 last year. There’s a free 16-concert music series in ATB Park….. There are food truck, performances on street pitches and outdoor stages. Ah, and beer tents (did you doubt it?), with a signature Fringe brew: Sea Change, named (I like to think) after a line in The Tempest.

Which brings us to the annual Fringe question floating through the Edmonton air: what to see. And .ca can help you with that. So stay tuned for suggestions, previews, reviews. And if you’ve been enjoying the content on my free (so far!) and independent theatre site, now would be such a great (OK, indispensable) time to chip in to my ongoing Patreon campaign — readers are ’s only support — with a monthly contribution to support ongoing .ca theatre coverage. The link is here. (And by using this Patreon website instead of the Apple app store to sign up as a Patreon patron, you completely avoid the 30 per cent add-on Apple plans  for new app users come Nov. 1).