Minnesota Fringe Festival

Minnesota Fringe connects adventurous artists with adventurous audiences by creating open, supportive forums for free and diverse artistic expression.

Through our summer festival and dynamic year-round programming, Minnesota Fringe is an artistic disruptor for local and national artists — to take bold risks, develop new ideas, and hoist themselves to the next rung of their artistic ladder. As the producer of the largest performing arts festival in the Midwest, our annual Minnesota Fringe Festival event fills tens-of-thousands of seats with audiences viewing dozens of works at hundreds of performances by more than 1,000 artists on a variety of stages in late summer.

Past projects have included Fringe Presents - a curated performance series highlighting local and national artists around a unified theme; Drafts & Draughts - a works-in-progress series of multidisciplinary work in development; and Beyond the Box - incubating artists and companies to develop public, outdoor performances.

Fringe is overseen by a governing board of directors and operated by a small year-round staff that balloons to nearly 100 seasonal hires leading up to the Festival Season - all with shared commitments to artists, audiences, operations, and growth. Fringe receives critical support from over 100 dedicated volunteers logging a combined 2,000+ hours each year. Fringe with Benefits members deepen our community connections and further strengthen relationships between adventurous artists and adventurous audiences by supporting adventurous art year-round.