2016 First Niagara Rochester Fringe Festival Dates Announced

The Rochester Fringe Festival Board of Directors announces today that the 10-day 2016 First Niagara Rochester Fringe Festival will open Thursday, September 15 and continue through Saturday, September 24.

"This is the same time frame as in previous years," explains Festival Producer Erica Fee, who adds that the festival's timing has always been strongly tied to area college participation. "We're already hard at work planning that the fifth annual Fringe will be our most inventive one yet."

The Fringe Board also has the pleasure to announce that the non-profit organization has been recommended to receive its first Art Works award of $20,000 from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). The Art Works category supports the creation of work and presentation of both new and existing work, lifelong learning in the arts, and public engagement with the arts through 13 arts disciplines or fields.

"This prestigious award will especially aid in supporting our spectacular, annual, free, public performance at Fringe on the Fringe," says Fringe Board Chair Justin L. Vigdor. "It has become one of the festival's signature events, which - by itself - draws upwards of 10,000 people to downtown Rochester each year."

Congresswoman Louise Slaughter's support was essential to the Fringe's NEA grant process.

"The First Niagara Rochester Fringe Festival has added a new and exciting dimension to our thriving arts festival community," says Slaughter. "I am pleased that the Fringe will be able to expand with the NEA grant."

In its first 50 years, the NEA has awarded more than $5 billion in grants to recipients in every state and U.S. jurisdiction, the only arts funder in the nation to do so. Today it announced awards totaling more than $27.6 million in its first funding round of fiscal year 2016 (arts.gov/news/2015/27-million-awarded-arts-projects). Other recommended recipients include Jazz at Lincoln Center and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, as well as Rochester's BOA Editions, George Eastman House and the University of Rochester. For more information on projects included in the NEA grant announcement, go to arts.gov.

NEA Chairman Jane Chu said: "The arts are part of our everyday lives - no matter who you are or where you live - they have the power to transform individuals, spark economic vibrancy in communities, and transcend the boundaries across diverse sectors of society. Supporting projects like the Rochester Fringe Festival offers more opportunities to engage in the arts every day."

Title sponsor First Niagara, which renewed its sponsorship in 2015 through 2018, agrees.

"We are very proud to once again be title sponsor of Fringe, which has brought incredible excitement and notoriety to our great city," says Suzanne Nasipak Chapman, First Niagara Rochester Market Executive. "The support of our community has helped it become one of the premier fringe festivals in the country. And now, with support from the NEA, Fringe will continue to grow and attract performers and spectators, and celebrate our region's creative spirit."

Since its debut in 2012, the First Niagara Rochester Fringe Festival has become one of the most successful fringe festivals in the U.S., attracting more than 63,000 attendees in 2015. This 10-day, multi-arts festival now boasts over 500 performances and events - more than a quarter of which are free - in 25+ venues in downtown Rochester, NY. Celebrating and inspiring creativity, the bifurcated Fringe includes everything from theatre, music, comedy and dance, to children's entertainment, spoken word, visual arts and film, and much more.

Rochester Fringe Festival is a not-for-profit, 501(c)(3) corporation that exists as a means to connect venues, performers, artists, educational institutions and the audience. It was pioneered by several of Rochester's esteemed cultural institutions, including Geva Theatre Center, the George Eastman House and Garth Fagan Dance, as well as up-and-coming groups like PUSH Physical Theatre and Method Machine. The Board of Directors includes representatives from the University of Rochester, Rochester Institute of Technology, Bond Schoeneck & King PLLC, Boylan Code LLC, the Eastman School of Music, Mengel, Metzger and Barr & Co. LLP, Method Machine, PUSH Physical Theatre, and Writers & Books. The Rochester Fringe Festival is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. This festival is also supported by a grant awarded to the Rochester Fringe Festival by New York State's Empire State Development and the I LOVE NY / NYS Division of Tourism under Governor Andrew M. Cuomo's Regional Economic Development Council Initiative.

2015 Fringe Sponsors included: First Niagara, I LOVE NY , the New York State Council on the Arts, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo, and the New York State Legislature, University of Rochester, RIT, Ames Amzalak Memorial Trust, Rochester Area Community Foundation, Waldron Rise Foundation, the Elaine U. & Richard P. Wilson Foundation, City of Rochester, Monroe County, Bond, Schoeneck & King PLLC, Boylan Code LLC, Mengel Metzger Barr LLC, Wegmans, Nocon & Associates, Mary Mulligan Trust, Ronald Fielding, SUNY Geneseo, The Pike Company, East Avenue Inn & Suites, CITY Newspaper, 10 NBC , Democrat & Chronicle, Broccolo Tree & Lawncare, McCarthy Tents & Events, Scott Grove, C.P. Ward, Buckingham Properties, Dundee, Heineken, Nazareth College, SUNY Brockport, Fred & Floy Willmott Foundation, Louis S. & Molly B. Wolk Foundation, Konar Enterprises, VisitRochester, House of Guitars, The Rubens Family Foundation, City Blue, Yelp!, WXXI, Gallina Development, G.H. Cretors Popped Corn, Benderson, Hamilton AV, Rural Metro, Kids Out and About - Kids' Media Partner, ESL Foundation, Wilson Foundation, Midtown Athletic, YMCA, Gouvernet Fund at the Rochester Area Community Foundation and others.

First Niagara, through its wholly owned subsidiary, First Niagara Bank, N.A., is a multi-state community-oriented bank with approximately 390 branches, $39 billion in assets, $29 billion in deposits, and approximately 5,400 employees providing financial services to individuals, families and businesses across New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut and Massachusetts. For more information, visit www.firstniagara.com.

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