Fringe festival back after 'extraordinary' growth

Award-winning Isabel Maria is performing at Durham Fringe for a second time

A "friendly" grassroots festival is returning for a fifth year, after attracting record crowds in 2024.

Durham Fringe launched in 2021 and has seen its audience more than triple, with people travelling from London and Manchester to attend.

One of the organisers Stephen Cronin said the event's "extraordinary" growth was "rare".

Singer-songwriter Isabel Maria said taking part in the Fringe last year had helped her "a lot" and she was looking forward to performing again.

There will be more than 110 various performing arts shows between 23 July and 27 July.

Mr Cronin, who is originally from Sunderland, said they were going to "make a bit of a fuss" of the fact the Durham Fringe was turning five, and throw a birthday party on the first day of the event.

The festival's first edition attracted about 2,250 visitors in 2021. Last year, more than 7,500 attended.

"We never expected to take off quite so well," Mr Cronin said.

He added the event was helping people get a start in performance and hopefully boosting the city's economy.

There will be 110 shows this year, up from 86 in 2024

Isabel Maria, 18, performed at the Fringe last year and went on to win a North East Culture Award in November.

"I feel like I don't often play in Durham, there's not that many music venues I'm aware of, but I've met some amazing people," she said.

"There's so many amazing creatives in Durham, it's really nice to bring them all together with Durham Fringe."

A core team of about nine people is organising the event with the support of more than 100 volunteers.

Stephen Cronin hopes the event will continue to grow

Mr Cronin said the festival had been so successful because it was "approachable".

"Somebody said right back in our first year that we are a friendly fringe and that's precious to us. It's precious that people think that we are friendly and helpful and supportive," he said.

The paediatrician added he hoped the event would still be around in 10 years.

"As we can see year on year, we've had a substantially growing audience, which is actually quite rare. A lot of theatre has struggled to keep their audiences growing.

"The fact that we've grown our audience from 2,250 in the first year to 7,500 in the fourth year is extraordinary in my mind and we hope to keep on growing. "