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Funders, including Arts Council England, should prioritise micro-grants with minimal application and reporting requirements, specially reserved for those with limited experience. £500 is a huge boost to a new maker. Such micro-grants should not be an added task for over stretched subsidised venues, but the responsibility of major funders to design and deliver.
The development of a Fringe Maker funding and payment policy by Equity to recognise the step before Professionally-Made-Professionally-Paid, specifically for Fringe Makers and venues outside of London, to encourage equitable but achievable practice.
Greater engagement by local authorities and the Lottery to support and subsidise non-arts venues (inc. pubs and churches) who open up their spaces for free, to support the financial outlay and to provide basic adaptions to encourage more Fringe Maker use.
Subsidised venues to assign a portion of artistic programming to local Fringe Makers, and to open rehearsal spaces when not already in use, including into the evenings and weekends. In the first instance these programming slots can be gaps between main shows or to cover quieter periods. Fringe Makers remain responsible for their own marketing efforts in lieu of extra funding, but no programming or marketing should be used to define and separate the work as distinct from other items on the programme. If it is on the stage, its legitimate.
FE and HE providers, subsidised venues and those in the opportunity economy to review the framing of language around connections to industry, replaced with greater transparency regarding limits of reach and struggle. Emerging talent is better prepared when the landscape is outlined transparently, with courses and opportunities structured around resilience, adaptability and change.
Provocations for Change
Acceptance of the Fringe Maker term should be incorporated into future academic, industry and policy-discourse to give legitimacy and to recognise this as a distinct area of practice. Acceptance begins with acknowledgement.
The implementation and launch of a Fringe Maker network, akin to the Young Vic Director’s Network, with opportunities for connection, shared learning and resources, and high-quality training linked to practitioners and academics.
A place-based approach to engaging meaningfully with Fringe Makers, led by subsidised venues, with transparency about the challenges, limits of power, and a genuine desire to transform relationships to improve provision and access. Not as a tokenistic one-off, but as regular coffee-catchups, steering groups and advisory boards, delivered around flexible schedules
Fringe Makers to engage critically with the implications of their own practice, particularly as it relates to engagement with “opportunities” and non-regulated “training” culture to move away from upholding systems of exploitation and oppression.
Fringe Maker productions to reframe rehearsals as a developmental and learning process, with skill sharing and development integral from the outset. This is to be democratised from across the team, with a recognition that shared learning across Fringe Maker projects benefits all, particularly in the absence of formal training.