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London unveils rival summer festival

Published Wednesday 25 November 2009 at 11:45 by Matthew Hemley

London will go head to head with Edinburgh next year when a major new fringe festival is held in the capital for the first time.

The London Festival Fringe will run from August 6 until August 30, putting it in direct competition with the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and will showcase work from across the world, covering music, theatre, comedy, poetry and film.

It is being organised by the people behind this year’s London Bridge Festival, which featured 200 events in 30 venues, and aims to follow the same model as the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Unveiling it this week, the team behind the event said it would allow artists and promoters to put on shows and events “on their doorsteps” and at a “price they can afford without earnings being eaten up by travel and accommodation costs”.

Greg Tallent, director of the London Festival Fringe, told The Stage that his aim was to make use of existing venues in the West End, as well as running events in streets, squares and buildings that are not currently used as performance venues.

“We realised there is a huge demand in London for a festival fringe. There are so many people working and living in London who are performers and they have nothing to go to under one big banner event,” he said.

This week, representatives from a number of London venues, including the Jermyn Street Theatre, the New Players Theatre and the Almeida Theatre, met with the organisers to discuss taking part in the event.

Responding to news of the London festival, Neil Mackinnon, head of external affairs at the EFF, said: “As the world’s pre-eminent open access arts festival, we in Edinburgh know how attractive an event it can be and we are not surprised that cities across the world are copying our template. Having just celebrated the most successful fringe ever, we have got nothing to fear and we are very relaxed about other cities joining the festivals community.”

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