What’s the Fringe?
FoCo Fringe is a multi-day festival for performing artists with bold creativity – professionals and amateurs alike – to share their art, inviting our community to experience the raw, the beautiful, and the unexpected.
The Fringe will feature 50+ performances across multiple downtown venues, showcasing theater, dance, film, comedy, and more.
About FoCo Fringe
The Fort Collins Fringe Festival launched in 2013 by the founding production and creative team, growing bigger and better year-after-year until 2020, when the festival was put on hold due to the Covid pandemic. The Fringe will return in June 2026 under new leadership.
The Fringe began in 1947 when eight groups appeared uninvited to the newly formed Edinburgh International Festival and performed “on the fringe” of the main festival—in church basements, storefronts, streets and alleys. While the main festival still exists, The Edinburgh Fringe is now the largest performing arts festival in the world: more than 500 companies from around the globe give thousands of performances during the 5 weeks of that festival.
FoCo Fringe is one of hundreds of Fringe Festivals that have been established throughout the world by local communities to provide an opportunity for artists to showcase their works and performances in a setting unconstrained by censorship, judgment, or the status quo.
The essence of Fringe lies in four core principles: unjuried selection (no gatekeepers deciding what’s “good enough”), uncensored content (artists have complete creative freedom), accessible pricing, and direct financial benefit to artists.
Fringe Festivals provide platforms for artists of all origins and disciplines to collaborate and share their art with each other and with the local community.
You never know what you are going to experience at the next Fringe Festival!
FoCo Fringe is made possible by a dedicate team of creatives, partners, and volunteers.
Interested in helping to make the magic happen? Get in touch with us! moc.liamg@tsefegnirfocof
We extend our deepest gratitude to the original Fort Collins Fringe founders—Heather Ostberg Johnson, Dulcie Willis, and Jessica MacMaster—whose vision brought Fringe to Fort Collins in 2013.
The festival grew bigger and better every year under the founding team’s leadership until it was necessary to put FoCo Fringe on hold due the global Covid pandemic.
The Founders have passed the torch to new leadership, but they haven’t left town. Look for their performance art and creativity around Fort Collins and at the next FoCo Fringe!
Founding Co-Producers, 2013 – 2020 (right to left) Heather Ostberg Johnson, Jessica MacMaster, and Dulcie Willis
The 2019 Fringe Highlights:
Before the pandemic put the Fringe on hold, the 2019 Fringe was the biggest yet in Fort Collins. The festival was a massive success for the founding team, with broad and deep artist and audience participation, happy venue hosts, and award-winning performances. They were successful in reaching a broader audience, attracting more local, regional and national interest, and engaging the local performing arts community.
2019 Festival Highlights include:
- Four days and 90 performances.
- Over 220 participating artists – theatre, dance,
film, clown, circus, magician, musician, and spoken word artists – presenting in 7 venues. - More than 3,100 individual tickets sold to more than 1,300 theatre-goers.
- Each presenting artist received 100% of their box
office revenues, with payouts to local and regional artists totaling $15,624.
Interested in helping to make the magic happen? Sign up to learn about upcoming opportunities!
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