NZ Fringe Festival Wraps Up With A Celebration Of Brilliance & With Most Successful Fringe That Pōneke Has Ever Seen

The New Zealand Fringe Festival, the largest multi disciplinary arts festival in Aotearoa, ended its spectacular three-week run in Pōneke with a celebration of brilliance at the NZ Fringe Awards Ceremony hosted on Sunday night at Te Auaha: NZ Institute of Creativity.

Twenty-three award winners were celebrated from across a wide range of creativity on display at the festival this year. The New Zealand Fringe Festival prides itself on being the largest open-access multidisciplinary arts festival in Aotearoa, with the number of sponsored awards available continuing to grow each year.

This year’s festival rounds off the most diverse, inclusive and successful NZ Fringe that Pōneke has ever seen, with ticket sales so far representing a massive 131% increase on last year—more than both 2021 and 2022 sales combined. A total of 21,541 tickets were sold for this year’s festival, putting close to $350,000 into artists’ pockets. Final reconciliations across all Fringe venues and box offices will be completed in the upcoming weeks.

Forty-Five different stages and venues were activated during the festival, offering 178 independent events across 23 days, spanning 25 genres of art with over 800 emerging and professional artists from across Aotearoa.

Festival Director Vanessa Stacey says “I couldn't possibly be prouder of our amazing Capital City, coming out in force to support such a plethora of remarkable local and international talents on offer this year. Every one of our wider Fringe whānau: multiple venues, front of house staff, technicians, volunteers, and of course our amazing NZ Fringe team! The talent this year was simply explosive and it was wonderful to see these artists celebrated by sold out and full houses again.”

The twenty-two awards in the festival span from creative ‘Spirit of the Fringe’ supported by Havana Coffee, to the whimsical ‘Spectacular Organised Chaos’ sponsored by NZ Improv Festival, to a new award: ‘Momentous Music’ supported by RadioActive Fm.

Highlights included the ‘Best of the Fringe’ Award which this year went to 'Arawhata': an incredible multidisciplinary theatre production produced by Wellington Ballroom, presented by her worship, Mayor Tory Whanau.

Her Worship, Mayor Tory Whanau says “To be part of a festival awards night so diverse, so inclusive and so creative made me proud to be Mayor. The night was electric and I was even more pleased to be able to present the award to ‘Arawhata’—very worthy recipients”.

Sponsored by Fringe Festivals across the motu and further afield, the ‘Tour Ready’ awards give artists the invaluable opportunity to tour their work to national and international Fringe circuits. The Australian Tour partnership award for Melbourne was awarded to ‘Only Bones’: where performer Daniel Nodder stepped from world-to-world in a piece of spellbinding physical theatre, now set to perform in Melbourne’s Fringe Festival. The ‘Only Bones’ team are also heading to San Diego with the San Diego Fringe Exchange Award. The Sydney Tour Ready joint winners, ‘Love/Love/Love/Love/Love’ and ‘Concept for a Film’ both brought innovative multidisciplinary pieces to the fore and look forward to taking their work across to Sydney’s Fringe. Adelaide award winner ‘Live, Laugh, Lesbian’ will also be taking their debut-solo queer cabaret piece to Adelaide Fringe.

The full list of awards and their 2023 recipients are listed below.

• Best in Fringe, sponsored by Her Worship Tory Whanau: Arawhata
• Most Innovative Work, sponsored by Wellington Airport: Concept for a Film
• Best Words, sponsored by an anonymous benefactor: Freya Daly Sadgrove, Whole New Woman
• Grand Design Award, sponsored by Inject Design: Ratking
• Outstanding Solo Performance, sponsored by Te Auaha: Daniel Nodder
• Outstanding Ensemble Performance, sponsored by Gibson Sheat and NZ Fringe: Arawhata
• Momentous Movement, Sponsored by NZME: Arawhata
• Most Promising Emerging Company, sponsored by Bats Theatre: Late Bloomers
• Most Promising Emerging Artist, sponsored by NZ Fringe: Grace Newton
• Most Promising Pasifika Artist, sponsored by Pasifika Arts CNZ: St Eves, Arawhata
• Memorable Marketing, sponsored by Phantom Billstickers: To Be Frank
• Spectacular Organised Chaos, sponsored by NZ Improv Festival: David Correos & Hamish Parkinson's Haha Horror
• Momentous Music, sponsored by Radioactive: Other Futures Big Band x Gallery Orchestra
• Spirit of the Fringe, sponsored by Havana Coffee: Felix Crossley-Pritchard and Loki Lyons
• Auckland Tour Ready Award, sponsored by Auckland Fringe Festival and MCH: Heartstrings
• Dunedin Tour Ready Award, sponsored by Dunedin Fringe Festival and MCH: Gender Marxist
• Melbourne Tour Ready Award, sponsored by Melbourne Fringe, Australian High Commission and NZ Fringe: Only Bones
• SYNZ Tour Ready Award, sponsored by Sydney Fringe, Australian High Commission and NZ Fringe: Love/Love/Love/Love/Love, Concept for a Film
• Adelaide Tour Ready Award, sponsored by Adelaide Fringe, Australian High Commission and NZ Fringe: Live, Laugh, Lesbian
• The San Diego Fringe Exchange, sponsored by San Diego Fringe and NZ Fringe: Only Bones
• The Parkin Development Award, sponsored by Chris and Kathy Parkin and Bats Theatre: 3 Steps Back

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