Greater Manchester Fringe festival moved to September 2021 after UK lockdown announcement

The Greater Manchester Fringe festival has been moved to September 2021, after the UK Government announced its roadmap out of lockdown.

The tenth edition of the festival, which was originally scheduled to take place in July 2021, will be held in September 2021, will use a number of Salford venues such as the King’s Arms, Salford Arts Theatre and The Empty Space. The festival opened its website for registration, meaning acts can register interest for the show.

Greater Manchester Fringe director, Zena Barrie, spoke of her reaction to the news:

“I’m trying to be optimistic, and these last couple of days have felt very nice, getting lots of emails from people wanting to do things, asking what’s happening. It feels very positive.

“But there is that nagging feeling of course that it could all be a disaster again. I’m not sure we could come back from it if it happens again.

“I saw something on Twitter, somebody described it as trying to organise something on quicksand, and I thought that was quite a good description of it really”.

Barrie is looking forward to what people can expect from this year’s festival:

“People are really excited by the prospect of being able to do something. If we are able to go ahead and do it, I think audiences will be super excited to go and see anything.

“I really hope it happens, and I really hope to be out there in September and going into these venues and supporting them and supporting all these groups and hopefully having a good time.

“It’s going to be so gorgeous to walk into a venue and see audiences and people with pints of beer waiting to go and watch some crazy new show, I’ll probably ball my eyes out every time I think!”

Past performers of the festival include Joel Dommett, Iain Sterling, James Acaster, Maisie Adam, Justin Moorhouse, and Hannah Hobley.

Greater Manchester Fringe is described as a ‘multi-venue open-access arts festival providing support for all art forms. The Greater Manchester Fringe website states that ‘ticket prices are low, sometimes free, providing greater access to a non-traditional theatre-going audience’.