The Spiegeltent Returns To KeyBank Rochester Fringe Festival

Organizers of the KeyBank Rochester Fringe Festival have announced that the Cristal Palace Spiegeltent will return to One Fringe Place (corner of Main St. and East Ave.) for the 10th annual Fringe from Tuesday, September 14 through Saturday, September 25. Also reappearing will be the adjacent outdoor Spiegelgarden, with its amenities and attractions.

"As soon as Rochester began opening up again, we immediately started working to bring back what has become a highlight for many of our attendees," explains Founding Festival Producer Erica Fee. "We will announce Spiegeltent performances and put those tickets on sale at the end of next month, but we wanted to share this uplifting news with the public as soon as possible."

In 2013, Rochester's Fringe was the first fringe festival in North America to feature one of these rare "mirror tents" from Malle, Belgium. Since then, the historic traveling music hall has wowed festival audiences annually with its stained-glass windows, glittering mirrors, velvet-draped ceiling, and vintage bar and booths. "What goes on in the Spiegeltent stays in the Spiegeltent" has become a Fringe catch phrase, and performances have included annual Cirque du Fringe cirque/comedy productions as well as a variety of late-night offerings. The surrounding Spiegelgarden is an outdoor lounge featuring games and activities, a fire pit, food trucks, Theatre Bar, Box Office, Info Booth, restrooms, and more.

From its five-day debut in 2012, the 12-day KeyBank Rochester Fringe Festival has become one of the fastest-growing and most-attended fringe festivals in the U.S. It is also the largest multidisciplinary performing arts festival in New York State. As a bifurcated festival, it allows for a combination of headline entertainment curated by the non-profit Rochester Fringe Festival as well as an open-access portion based on the 74-year-old Edinburgh Fringe model.

Last year's Virtual Fringe offered more than 170 online productions, both live-streamed and on-demand, giving artists a platform and connecting audiences throughout our community and beyond. The 2019 Fringe featured more than 650 performances and events - over 200 of them free - in 25+ downtown venues and broke all previous attendance records with more than 100,000 visitors.

Rochester Fringe Festival connects and empowers artists, audiences, venues, educational institutions, and the community to celebrate, explore, and inspire creativity via an annual, multi-genre arts festival. It was pioneered by several of Rochester's esteemed cultural institutions including Geva Theatre Center, the George Eastman Museum and Garth Fagan Dance; up-and-coming arts groups like PUSH Physical Theatre and Method Machine; and higher-education partners such as the University of Rochester and Rochester Institute of Technology. The not-for-profit organization's overarching mission is to provide a platform for artists to share their ideas and develop their skills while also offering unparalleled public access to the arts. It strives to be diverse and inclusive, and to stimulate downtown Rochester both culturally and economically.

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