It is the first time in years without significant Covid-19 restrictions, the first time sharing a collaborative space with Dunedin Pride and the first time the festival has been run by three women in its history.
"From the outside it looks like it’s any other Fringe Festival but it’s really not," Dunedin Fringe Festival co-organiser Kate Schrader said.
Ms Schrader, along with fellow co-organisers Ruth Harvey and Katrina Thomson, are the three women spearheading the festival, which started last Thursday and ends on Sunday .
After a tumultuous few years of funding challenges, leadership changes and compressed timeframes, the Fringe Festival managed to find a way to survive.
The festival was last held in 2021 at a smaller scale in line with Covid-19 guidelines.
It was cancelled a day before it launched in 2020 which devastated the previous organisers.
Ms Harvey said this year’s festival was now "on par with" the planned 2020 festival.
"It’s a testament to the incredible hard work and tenacity of our amazing festival team that this has all happened at all."
With the first week of events over, the faces behind the festival are pretty stoked with the results to say the least.
Ms Harvey was proud of the festival’s open access kaupapa (principles).
"It creates a lot of opportunity for young and emerging artists to try things, experiment and explore their identity as artists.
"For more established people it’s often the platform they use to try out new material and refine their shows.
"Fringe is such a vital ecosystem and support for artists at all levels of experience and reputation."
"It was a big milestone to get to that point. Once we were there, it felt like ‘yeah, we can do this thing’."
It was amazing to offer international acts again as "for the last couple of years that was virtually impossible".
The festival was able to deepen its connection this year with Dunedin Pride with the creation of the shared Fringe x Pride hub.
Dunedin Pride chairperson Trak Gray was excited by the opportunities for collaboration the hub offered.
"Through partnering across the city it creates the narrative and the truth, the really important truth, that the city is accessible to the rainbow community."
They said the pandemic was "a weird blessing in disguise that gave us some really constructive barriers."
"It nailed a framework that’s resistant to a pandemic. If we can do it during covid we can certainly do it now."
