The Ottawa Fringe Festival has always been a place to take a chance on up-and-coming theatre from local and international artists. The 2025 Fringe Festival marks 28 years since it began in Ottawa, and remains the biggest theatre festival in the city.
From June 12-22, there will be 58 shows this year that will run across nine different venues in downtown Ottawa. This will culminate into around over 350 unique single performances throughout the festival’s duration.
“It is truly a place where artists can thrive on testing out new theatre pieces,” says Fringe Executive and Artistic Director Alain Richer. “You can take a chance on performances because the costs are so low and the running time is so short. There is definitely something for everyone at the Fringe Festival.”
Fringe Festival 2025 poster. Photo provided.
Although Fringe experienced lower audience turnout post-pandemic, they’ve quickly regained audience attendance and ticket sales since COVID-19 impacted in-person performances.
Their first year back to in-person performances was in 2022, and attendance has been steadily climbing each year.
“Last year we were 200-ish tickets away from our record year in 2019,” says Richer. “So this year, we’re poised to meet, if not exceed, the record ticket sales that we got in 2019 which is really exciting,” he says. “It shows a thirst for coming back to theatre.”
Fringe Festival logo. Photo provided.
Not only that, but Fringe has taken great measures to ensure accessible programming and elements to all of their shows. Many of these were developed pre-pandemic, but have contributed to more people in the community coming out to enjoy the fest.
“[We’re] introducing accessible elements including transcripts and extended content notes, audio described performances, assisted listening, and a few ASL described shows this year as well,” he says. “It’s not something that we started when we came back to in-person festivals in 2022, but it’s definitely something we were able to grow into what it is now.”
Not only has Fringe been growing in accessibility, but they’ve also been growing to include Francophone programming as well. Brand new to the festival this year was Fringe’s French lottery category.
This category was also supported by La Nouvelle Scène Gilles Desjardins — a hub for French theatre in the city.
Garcon Beton is one of the Francophone performances at Fringe this year. Photo provided.
“We had an overwhelming amount, more people than anticipated, apply for the category,” says Richer. “We have a full eight shows that are part of our Francophone lottery category this year.”
As a bilingual city, and the only other Fringe festival in Canada offering bilingual performance (the other is in Montreal), this is something Richer says will be a permanent feature moving forward.
“When we introduced Francophone shows to our undercurrents festival a couple of years ago, what we learned is that while the goal was to really find a new audience and open up to new audiences, it also serves a lot of our existing audiences that are bilingual and enjoy French theatre.”
The Fringe Festival always brings high energy and good vibes, as well as an opportunity for local creators to connect and support one another.
“The festival atmosphere is exciting and energetic, and right at the beginning of summer, which makes it an exciting space to be at,” says Richer. “It’s really an important and special space for these artists every year.”
The Ottawa Fringe Festival will take place from June 12-22 at three central hubs downtown: Arts Court (67 Nicholas St.), La Nouvelle Scène Gilles Desjardins (333 King Edward Ave.), and Café Alternatif (75 Laurier E.). Tickets are $14, with five and ten show passes available as well. Tickets go on sale today at ottawafringe.com.
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