The Fringe Fund helps our very best emerging and independent artistic talent achieve incredible things, supporting artists to find the money they need to make ground-breaking, innovative and brilliant art. The Fringe Fund provides commissioning opportunities, concessions on fees, and even cold hard cash to ease financial pressure on artists so they can do what they do best.
Two opportunities are currently on offer:
The Secret Ingredient Commission
We’re seeking artists to contribute to a ground-breaking project alongside programming for a unique premiere event. This project, which is still under wraps, promises to be an immersive outdoor experience like no other. We’re open to fresh, innovative ideas that can be explicitly adapted for an outdoor venue and premiered during the festival dates (1-20 October 2024). We welcome ideas for any works that engage with a public audience, not just structured shows. You also don’t need to be presenting another event in the Festival to be eligible.
If successful, you will receive:
• $4,000 cash from the Fringe Fund to produce, present and market your event;
• Festival registration fee waiver for the event;
• Use of an expertly curated, architecturally designed outdoor venue that will premiere as part of the 2024 Melbourne Fringe Festival. The successful works will feature at an eye-catching performance space, serving as the centrepiece of the Festival.
Applications close 19 May.
Ralph McLean Microgrants
Our Ralph Mclean Microgrants program is jam packed with small parcels of cash (a microgrant if you will) to support artists who are finding the rego fee or other upfront costs a barrier to participation. The program also covers other upfront costs experienced by the artist – so not costs to put on your show, but costs that you experience that the average artist does not; this might be fuel a bursary for a regionally based artist, or late night transport assistance for vulnerable artists to get home safely, or a social interpreter for an artist with limited English to attend a networking event. You can also apply to have your rego fee waived (partially or in full) if that’s the particular thing standing in your way from registering an event.
Applications close 19 May.