As one of the oldest arts organisations in the State (est. 1983) ARTRAGE has developed and presented numerous key cultural events and festivals that enrich and evolve the culture of Western Australia.
In WA’s arts and cultural landscape ARTRAGE currently ranks 1st for operating revenue and 3rd for total patron engagement. Based on an 20/21 Annual Report analysis conducted by Business News.
The organisation delivers substantial economic value to the state from its major cultural activities. For FY 21/22 ARTRAGE contributed almost $34m in direct economic impact. For every $1 invested in ARTRAGE by the state government $23 was stimulated and spent in the local economy, equating to 247 FTE jobs stimulated.
Early Years
The origin of ARTRAGE was as the Festival Fringe Society of Perth, established in 1983. At the time, Perth lacked the necessary critical mass of artists, venues, audiences and sponsors necessary to sustain the ‘Fringe’ alongside the Festival of Perth (Perth Festival). Consequently, in 1988 the organisation decided to move the Fringe from summer to spring, and to re-brand it as Artrage Festival, an annual festival dedicated to the presentation of alternative independent arts - a format that was followed until the organisation’s 25th ‘Silver’ Festival Anniversary in 2008.
After the Silver Festival and during a large refurbishment of the musical venue that ARTRAGE managed, The Bakery, ARTRAGE instigated a wide sector, stakeholder and community consultation around the idea of reintroducing a genuine independent ‘Fringe’ to the Perth summer. The consultation revealed that there was great interest in this potential, and FRINGE WORLD was born.
Birth of FRINGE WORLD
In February 2011 a pilot FRINGE WORLD program was staged in the newly purchased De Parel Spiegeltent in the Perth Cultural Centre as a taster, teaser and tester towards the launch of a full Fringe festival in 2012. Significant support was given to this pilot enterprise as a significant state initiative care of Lotterywest.
Over 150 local, national and international artists took part in 100 plus individual performances over three weekends in 2011. Seven of the world’s leading Fringe directors and producers also gathered on invitation to Perth to participate in the inaugural FRINGE WORLD Summit. They contributed significantly to the final stages of design and planning towards the FRINGE WORLD model and plan.
In 2012 the first FRINGE WORLD was presented as a four-week Festival, featuring 200+ events, 40+ venues and $1 million in tickets sold.
The Festival achieved tremendous growth in the first few years and in 2015 the Festival obtained status as the third largest Fringe in the world, behind the Edinburgh and Adelaide Fringe festivals that have been running since 1947 and 1960 respectively. FRINGE WORLD celebrated its 10th birthday in 2021.
FRINGE WORLD was designed and delivered as a new model of Fringe geared to maximise both local audience engagement and international Fringe artist and industry attraction to the festival and to Perth. Perth’s hybrid Fringe model means that ARTRAGE manages some of the venues in the Festival (e.g. The Pleasure Garden), alongside participation from hundreds of independent venues.
ARTRAGE Projects
ARTRAGE has since inception produced arts activity year-round in Western Australia.
The Bakery live performance venue was located in Northbridge and run by ARTRAGE from 2002 to 2015. The Bakery was an all-round friend to the arts in Western Australia as a live performance venue, exhibition space and a specialised music venue. The venue closed because of the building owner’s redevelopment plans.
In 2012 ARTRAGE presented its first cinema program, Rooftop Movies. This popular and picturesque summer cinema pops up on the top floor of the CPP Roe St carpark from October – March annually.
From 2018 - 2021 ARTRAGE presented a program of events at the old Perth Girls School in East Perth, thanks to a partnership with Australian Development Capital (ADC). The program included Girls School Cinema in winter, an annual FRINGE WORLD program and the immersive theatre performance A Midnight Visit, plus more. For the present, ARTRAGE will not be producing further shows at Girls School, but we look forward to seeing the building and precinct transform thanks to ADC and we hope to return in the near future.
In 2021 ARTRAGE formalised its year-round program of activities into the business stream, ARTRAGE Projects. Recent activity includes a regional tour of The Rocky Horror Picture Show Immersive Spectacular, Rooftop Movies Roller Club, Club Cumming and upcoming activity includes Free Range and open-air live theatre at Rooftop Movies.
Impact of COVID-19
ARTRAGE was impacted by COVID-19 from 2020 and whilst the 2020 FRINGE WORLD Festival had no restrictions, the Rooftop Movie season was cut short and Girls School Cinema winter season delayed, resulting in significant loss of income and unrecoverable expenses. In response to restrictions and the financial impact, ARTRAGE staff took a pay cut and a reduced working week from March to July.
Whereas for the previous few years ARTRAGE had presented between 3-5 hubs at the Festival, COVID-19 forced the organisation to focus on producing just two: The Pleasure Garden and Girls School. The launch of the FRINGE WORLD app in 2021 helped to market the Festival in the face of significant challenges as well as improve sustainability through going digital. The organisation implemented a range of artist support measures to lower the risk of participation.
The 2021 FRINGE WORLD Festival was impacted by COVID-19 border restrictions resulting in fewer events (559 vs 722 in 2020), capacity restrictions resulting in reduced audiences (460K vs 820K in 2020) and there was a mid-Festival lockdown. The subsequent loss of income resulted in more than a $1 million deficit to ARTRAGE.
The 2022 FRINGE WORLD Festival was impacted by COVID-19 in a different way. Border controls in place since December 2021 and the cancelling of the 5 Feb border re-opening resulted in 72 events being unable to be presented in the Festival.
Attendance was below targets due to a mix of customer hesitancy relating to Omicron fears, mask mandates, many CBD businesses allowing the workforce to WFH and a record-breaking heatwave. These factors also impacted many other City businesses and events.
Future and present ARTRAGE
ARTRAGE’s focus between 2011-2020 was centred on FRINGE WORLD Festival, specifically to stimulate growth in audience reach and program scale. This growth has been achieved and maintained (barring COVID-19 impacts) with the Festival still considered to be one of the largest annual arts events in WA.
This focus was reflected in the organisation's Purpose, Vision and Mission relating mostly to the Festival, but since 2020 ARTRAGE has expanded its focus to include growing non-FRINGE WORLD activity, whilst still maintaining FRINGE WORLD’s status and reach.
The organisation was able to expand its scope because it had built and consolidated its structure to enable business diversification to take place in a sustainable way. COVID-19 hampered the organisation’s ability to expand on these ambitions thus far, but the ARTRAGE Strategic Plan 2023 -2026 sets out clear goals for the future growth of the organisation. This includes increasing year-round production through the ARTRAGE Projects business stream, and through building pathways for engagement with more audiences, particularly people with accessibility needs, CALD groups and groups that are financially disadvantaged.
Funding for the aims of the ARTRAGE Strategic Plan will come from a mix of utilising existing financial resources, corporate sponsorship, philanthropy and state and local government funding.
