I didn't share the sense of impending doom when the issue of the Beer Tent came up a few months ago. Not only did I question the doom angle, but it isn't even a new issue. The beer sales may be crucial to the Fringe for funding, and hence all the entertainment at the Tent attracts the beer drinkers, funding aside, you could hack off the Beer Tent and not much would be lost to the core of the Fringe.
Back in 2000, while doing routine searches to see what was being said about Fringe Festivals, I discovered that one group wanted the government to stop funding the Montreal Fringe, calling it a "porn festival". I wrote about it at the time, early June of 2000, which is readable here. As I say there, Patrick shrugged at the time. The lack of community as network meant that I had no easy way to get the message to the other acts that were specifically mentioned until I found them at the Beer Tent. I didn't see it as a threat, but did think that it would be a great promotional tool, "look what people don't want you to see". I did get some press along that lines, but nobody else used the angle.
Then three months later, I suddenly get email from the Fringe, readable here Note the "SAVE THE FRINGE!/SAUVEZ LE FRINGE!" in the subject header, a sure sign that someone is overreacting. I didn't react at all, given that Patrick had never contacted me in those three months to ask me about it, but then wanted me and the rest to follow their commands. One of these days I need to hook up my Mac LC and retrieve the email I sent back in response, which was about how to do such a campaign (get it out into public view, not just send it to the handful of people on an email list), but basically dismissing it as a threat. We never heard anything further, so I do think they overreacted.
On the other hand, putting such news out into public view is important. Keep people informed, so they can make decisions and simply because when you provide news or even gossip you are connecting with the masses, so they will be ready when something important does come up.
I've chastised the Fringe a bunch of times in the years since, for not using the website for regular updates, to give us information that makes us feel a part of the Fringe. When they started sending out their listing of upcoming shows, they rarely sent out Fringe news, missing the point completely.
So the Beer Tent issue came up this year. The hype seemed like that email from 2000, if we didn't do something it would be The End of the Fringe. But, this isn't a new issue. Long time Fringers will remember that in 1994, the Fringe had to move the Beer Tent from where it had been on Guilbaut for a number of year (I don't know if that was the original location) to the parking lot of the bank at Prince Arthur, because Cinema Parallel had grabbed the spot for their beer tent, when they had a big anniversary event including outdoor movies (and this even seemed to be a significant factor in the move to McGill, to get away from the competition). And then in 1995, the bank wouldn't allow the use of the space, saying they were repaving (but that didn't happen till the Festival was over). So the Beer Tent moved inside, to a space above the Second Cup that now stood at Guilbault where the Beer Tent had been previously. But, the City of Montreal would not allow Guilbault to be closed, I recall it had been previous years, and the infobooth was the Pepsi Wagon, parked on St. Lawrence Blvd in a parking space. But, the city wouldn't even compromise that far, and for at least part of the Festival someone had to keep feeding quarters into the meter. As Montreal Fringe founder Kris Morra said on June 7, 1995:
And the problems continue! A recent conversation with
Alain Petel at Service de la Culture (festivals) indicated
that it was IMPOSSIBLE to put our information kiosk at the
corner of Guilbault and St. Laurent as it must go to the
executive committee 9 days in advance! We want to close a
alley of a street used for nothing but driving around the
block to find parking. we also wanted to "share" the other
side of Guilbailt with the Festival of Nouveau Cinema and
Video. He uses the street from 9:30 pm on, we want it from
noon to 9pm. He said it was too difficult because he isn't
getting enough funding (PARDON ME!) or something absurd like
that. Meanwhile, I am rapidly heading towards a nervous
breakdown!
I guess the bit about feeding the parking meters was in a Gazette article.
The current Beer Tent location was used that year, for the final Sunday of the Fringe, to mount something called Fringestock which was some outdoor music.
Then we moved to McGill from 1996 thru 1998. The first year there, the Beer Tent was in the parking lot of the Shatner Building on McTavish, and the outdoor stage on the closed street, meaning everything was on an angle. But there were noise complaints too, with people living right next door, so the tent was subdued.
What people also forget was that in the early days, the Beer Tent was not open to the public. You had to have a ticket stub or a program, in effect a "club member" to get in. And there was someone at the entrance to check. Though, by 1997 it had gotten watered down, with the checker telling people to go to the Info Table and get a flyer. But still, it was an insider place, where you hung out between shows, especially important during the McGill years where there wasn't much happening nearby. The entertainment was low key, and it was more a place to promote to the people who'd already seen shows. Even in 1996, I said "Other years, I've felt the free stage had little connection to the rest of the Fringe since it was free and about music, but the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction when hardly anyone, either passersby or Fringe goers, are watching".
It was only when the Fringe returned to St. Lawrence Blvd in 1999, in the parking lot of a restaurant, that things took off. Suddenly, the tent was open to everyone, there was a lot of entertainment planned (and they showed up as scheduled, which had not always been the case previously), and it was attracting non-Fringers, presumably for the beer.
The next year, it moved to the current location (of course, then it ceased being a single tent, since the site was the wrong shape) with different restrictions due to being on public property, but likely making it easier in other ways.
Take note that as we were taking the Beer Tent down in 2004, someone said they'd heard talk that the Beer Tent would have to move the next year, and the same person said the talk was Jeanne Mance Park. And of course, in 2005 Amy Barratt wrote in The Mirror after the Fringe For All that permission had not yet arrived. When we put up the Beer Tent, Jeremy said the city tended to leave things till the last minute in reference to permits such as this, or rather they meet on a specific day and that was close to the Fringe date.
By the time something reaches a crisis, it's often too late to do anything about. The fact that the Fringe had not been telling us of such problems along the way is an indication that the problem was less serious than the articles pronounced.
The Fringe did not lose its audience when it moved to McGill. In 1995, assistant producer David Gobeil Taylor said in a post that 10,062 tickets were sold, Beer Tent attendance was 5106 (how did they measure that, I think by number of beers sold divided by some factor) and outdoor show attendance was approximately 17,000. Likely fewer people came for the music at the Beer Tent in the McGill era, but I don't recall a drop in inside show attendance (though I never saw figures).
In 2004, attendance was given as 20,000 tickets sold. It's the Beer Tent attendance that has really inflated the attendance figures, something like an overall attendance of 53,000 in 2004 or 2005, which means 33,000 people
I'm stopping this now, but will finish it tonight.