Marcus Canning

CEO Artrage. Director FRINGE WORLD Festival. Sometime artist.

What did you want to be when you grew up?
An astronaut magician.

When did you know you would work in the arts?
I was planning to be 100% artist, but found myself early in entrepreneurial and organising situations. This started when I was still at art school setting up a 90’s live-in warehouse collective and gallery with friends. We held many illegal raves there. One was attended by Goldie & Bjork. I still have the mug she sipped water from all night. I got interested early in scenarios where culture and commerce interface in ways that are popular but also skate the edge of the new and often subversive. Nowadays my work tends to be more about pushing the parameters of legal compliance and red tape in the mounting of new cultural events.

How would you describe your work to a complete stranger?
Insomniac eclectic. In terms of number of shows and artists involved, FRINGE WORLD is now the largest cultural festival in WA. It’s not all Artrage does though. In addition to producing the Fringe, Artrage also has a pumping year-round music venue, The Bakery. We’re touring our own Spiegeltent regionally later in the year. We just set up a new rooftop cinema and bar that will run all summer. All these things in conjunction not only keeps the organisation moving at a cracking pace, but also gives our business model a decent slice of independent revenue to work with. The Artrage team reflects this entrepreneurial spirit and dynamism. Every day and night is different.

When did you first fall in love with the concept of Fringe?
Artrage was born from the first time a Fringe was attempted alongside the Perth Festival in 1983. After a few years the festival moved to its own springtime slot and ran annually as the Artrage Festival until its 25th Anniversary in 2008. At this point, we decided that the time was right for an independent Fringe to once again run alongside the Perth Festival. With over 100 Fringes now around the world, Fringe is a global brand and a highly dynamic model for audience development wherever it successfully takes seed.

How long have you been working to bring Fringe World to Perth?
We held a pilot season in our newly purchased Spiegeltent in 2011 as a key means to test the marketplace before moving to production of a full scale Fringe. This pilot season included us hosting a Fringe World Summit where we gathered key international Fringe directors and managers who alongside the local sector, contributed to the modelling of the right kind of Fringe for the contemporary Perth context.

As you see it, what is the purpose of a Fringe Festival?
First and foremost Fringes are a market place. It’s the core task of the Fringe to ensure a large and demographically diverse audience is first attracted to, then has an amazing time experiencing a wide range of works during the festival. Fringes are by their nature real-world development environments for artists and have launched many an international career.

How does Perth’s compare with other similar festivals around the world?
We’ve positioned FRINGE WORLD as The Boutique Fringe at the Edge of the World, and at least for the first cycle of the life of the festival, it is a model that is both open-access, as well as having a core producing role for the organisation behind the Fringe. FRINGE WORLD was one of eight key international Fringe festivals that established the World Fringe Alliance in 2011. These include Adelaide, Amsterdam, Brighton, Hollywood, Grahamstown, New York, Perth and Prague. There are already award winning works from across the Alliance touring between them.

What did you feel were the most successful bits of the 2012 festival?
The use of The Treasury as a once only hub was amazing – nine pop-up venues running shows back to back each night, all clustered around a large free outdoor bar and performance space. It gave FRINGE WORLD a real Edinburgh Fringe feel on the weekends where all shows were sold out, and audiences were moving in and out of all the spaces in waves.

What can we look forward to at the 2013 Fringe World Festival?
We’re working extensively with BOP Consulting, who do all the research and data analysis for Festivals Edinburgh. This work will inform the next stage planning in significant ways. Locking in which of the new initiatives on the cards we’re going to green light won’t happen until this data analysis is complete. We do know the future is looking very bright for FRINGE WORLD in its second year.

How would someone get involved in next year’s event?
Registrations will open in May. Join the FRINGE WORLD mailing list and we’ll keep you in the loop.