2025 Atlanta Fringe Artist Resources

• February 28 – Last day to withdraw and get your production fee refunded. After this deadline, the fee is non-refundable.
• March 15 – Marketing information due – marketing questionnaire + Buzz intro interview (check your Eventotron for these) 
• March 30 – the “we think you might be deadline” – If we’ve been trying to get in touch with you, but haven’t heard back or received any of the necessary information by this date, we will buy a white rose in your memory, because you’ll forfeit your slot and production fee and we’ll move on to the next name on the waitlist.
• April 14 – W9 due (download form here) – email to atlantafringefestival@gmail.com – only primary contact may submit ONE W9 per production 
• April 20 – Multi-show passes go on sale
• April 27 – Single tickets go on sale
• May 1 – performance waivers due – all cast + crew must sign (we will update you later with our new waivers when they’re ready.) Payment info due as well in Eventotron: Once you sign in, on the top right hand-side is a silhouette icon of a person. If you click on that, you can go to “Edit Profile.” On the left-hand side, there’s a place for you to put your payment details, add people to their company, etc.  

Producers who fail to follow the rules will be removed from the festival, which may result in the forfeiture of production fee, performance slots, box office receipts, and may impact eligibility to participate in future festivals.

1. You are responsible for reading and understanding everything on this page. You must share this information with your entire cast and crew, so they know how its going to work when they get here, too. Most questions you may have about Atlanta Fringe are answered here.

2. MEET DEADLINES. Time management is crucial for a successful Fringe. We expect you to be prepared. We have a lot of individual companies to keep on track—if we spend even two minutes calling each company, that’s hours of extra work. So, please meet all the deadlines we put forth.

We must receive your Show Image and Marketing Questionnaire by March 15, 2025. Submit in Eventotron.

We must receive a W-9 tax form for the primary contact or producing company by April 14, 2025. The person or entity we cut the check to after the festival ends needs to follow this link to fill out the form, https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/fw9.pdf sign, download with your changes, and email to atlantafringefestival@gmail.com.

We must receive a Performance Agreement with the signature of every member of your cast and crew who will participate at the Fringe venue during the festival, by May 1, 2025. If we do not get them, you will not be allowed to have your tech rehearsal, or do your show. For real.

3. Once we determine the performance schedule, we cannot rearrange your scheduled performances. You are not allowed to cancel any of your scheduled performances unless a member of your team tests positive for COVID-19. In that case, festival staff should be alerted and will make the official decision to cancel.

4. You cannot go over the 60 minute performance time limit. If you run over, you will receive a one time warning, and we expect you to make cuts to your show to stay under 60 minutes at your next performance. If it happens a second time, you will not be allowed to perform the remaining festival performances. We expect you to respect the schedule and the other performers in the festival.

5. Never call your venue with questions. Any venue questions should be directed to your venue manager. You can contact them directly through Eventotron. If you have reached out multiple times to your venue manager and and haven’t heard back, please contact Production Director Nadia Morgan (nadia.morgan@gmail.com) and copy Executive Director Diana Brown (atlantafringefestival@gmail.com).

6. Do not alter, paint, move or damage anything in the venue that doesn’t belong to you.

7. Clean up after your show. There are several other companies sharing your venue, so be considerate to leave the space clean for the next performance. Remember to take everything with you after your last performance. Atlanta Fringe Festival and the hosting venue are not responsible for any items left behind after the festival. Anything left behind after the conclusion of the festival will be considered abandoned and will be disposed of.

8. Promote your own show vigorously. We market the festival as a WHOLE; you are responsible for promoting your show individually. We don’t have the capacity to promote 60 individual shows equally, so it’s up to you to convince folks to choose your show over the others.

9. Acquire the appropriate rights or permissions for your production. If we find out you’re using someone else’s work without permission, we will remove your show from our lineup and you will potentially forfeit ticket sales.

10. Play nice. Treat everyone with respect. You represent the festival and we expect Southern Hospitality all around. Everyone should treat everyone else fairly and respectfully and get the same treatment in return. ALL festival participants are expected to conduct themselves in a courteous manner. Bullying, harassment, victimization, or any other malicious behavior will not be tolerated and will get you and possibly your whole show expelled from the festival and banned from application to future festivals, at the sole discretion of festival organizers. Be kind to your volunteers, technicians and venue managers. They are awesome and nice and helping you out, so be polite and friendly, y’all.

11. The only times you have access to your venue are 1) during your three-hour tech rehearsal; 2) during your scheduled performance times; and 3) 15 minutes before your scheduled performance time and 15 minutes after. If you are backstage, in the wings, in the dressing room, tech booth, load-in area, or anywhere else in your venue outside of these times, you will be in someone’s way. We once had a show enter their venue during the previous show’s performance and actually move the props and set pieces out of the wings to make way for their own. That is completely unacceptable and incredibly discourteous to your fellow artists. The only time you should be in your venue outside of your scheduled times are because you’re in the audience enjoying the show. 

• If any member of your creative team starts having symptoms during the week of the festival, alert festival staff immediately and get the symptomatic individual tested. See the CDC’s list of symptoms for reference: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/symptomstesting/ symptoms.html 
•  Fringe will need to see a negative test result from the symptomatic individual before they will be allowed to perform or be in any backstage space. If negative, we require the symptomatic individual to wear a mask in the green room or when close to other artists to avoid spreading whatever they may have. If still symptomatic the next day, another test will be required, and so on.
• If positive, you will have the option to continue your show without the COVID-positive individual or to cancel your performance.
• Any ticket sales from canceled performances will be refunded to customers. Ticket sales from already performed shows will be sent on to you, but we will not be able to refund your production fee. Please keep this potential risk in mind.
• Be honest! We know that it would be a major inconvenience and a huge bummer to cancel your show – for us as well as you! – but it’s better than potentially infecting a whole festival’s worth of people and getting the entire event shut down. Do not keep it to yourself.

FRINGE HEADQUARTERS:
7 Stages Theatre
1105 Euclid Avenue SE
Atlanta GA 30307

Atlanta Fringe Merchandise available at HQ Box Office

HQ BOX OFFICE HOURS:
To Be Announced!

FESTIVAL SCHEDULE  

Week of May 19 – Georgia Artists Preview Party (TBA)
Supermarket Event Stage

This is the party where YOU get to preview 3 minutes of your show to an audience of hungry potential ticket buyers and press! Be sure to schedule time for this into your process over the next few months. Find a snippet of your show you think is compelling. Create a live (or video) trailer of your show. Send a male sex doll crowdsurfing around the audience. Whatever will make your show stick out in people’s memory and get them clickin’ on that ticket link. This first preview party will be just for our Georgia-based artists. 

Wednesday, May 28 – Touring Artists Preview Party
7 Stages Mainstage 
7:30pm-10:30pm

Preview Party part II! Just like our Georgia Artists, all the Touring Artists who just got into town will have 3 minutes to strut their stuff in a free showcase for our hungry Fringe audience.

Monday, June 2 – Five/5ths of The Fifth Element
7 Stages Mainstage, 1105 Euclid Ave. NE., Atlanta, GA 30307
Doors open at 7pm – Show 7:30pm-10:30pm

Quiver, fringies, quiver, ’cause there’s a killer lineup in place and they are on the case! This is your chance to see the most supergreen of send-ups as we split this classic film into five parts and give each part to five very different performance groups to do whatever they see fit with them! This is the only show in the festival where Atlanta Fringe keeps all of the ticket sales to go towards our next festival, so don’t miss out, you beautiful meat popsicles! 

Hive Hot Spots – Our official after-party
Locations & Time TBD

A big part of every Fringe is socializing between artists and audiences. Starting after the last show of the night, find fellow fringe artists, volunteers, staff, and audience members clinking glasses and chowing down at one of our host bars (with their kitchens open late, of course). You’ll see our Fringe sign welcoming you in! Check back here for updates as we secure these party locations. 

Sunday, June 8 – Closing Night Party
Location TBA
7—10pm

“Dirty South Get Down”
Festival awards announced.

Atlanta Fringe Festival is unjuried. Your application was placed in a lottery and drawn at random. Venues were assigned in the order artists were drawn in the lottery; if possible, we put you into the first or second preferred venue indicated on your application. Main placement factors include: number of performers, use of projection, and specific size needs. We do our best to ensure a fair assigning of shows to venues based on the shows’ needs per the application and order drawn in the lottery.

What to expect at your host venue:

• An empty space without a set standing on it.
• A general lighting plot shared by all projects in the venue, at minimum, dimmable wash. We try to accommodate one lighting special request per company.
• A basic sound system for playback of music and sound cues.
• A clean and safe environment.
• Please refer to Eventotron for specific details about each venue and its technical capabilities.
• We do not provide follow spots or body mics at any venue.
• We do not provide set, prop, or costume pieces. Chairs, tables, wigs, fake blood, fog machine juice, etc will need to be locally sourced or brought with you. Consult your venue information for anything that might be available on site, or chat with your venue manager.

Performance Schedule Assignment We are fair about performance scheduling and give each company an equal distribution of popular showtimes as well as less desirable times. We also strive to stagger all shows enough so there is no exact schedule crossover, allowing artists full potential to see other shows in the festival they are interested in.

There is no access to the venues before your tech rehearsal – we understand your desire to see the space you’ll be working in, but it’s not possible. We have rented the space for the duration of the festival and no more, and each and every day something is happening in there. The only time you’ll be able to access the venue is during your tech rehearsal – so be ready to use that time wisely.

We do not arrange venue visits. During the festival, you will only have access to the performance space 30 minutes before your performance time so be on time and ready to go, but do not interrupt the show before you. Please do not enter any shared green room/dressing room space or wing space until the prior show’s performers have all exited. We will have disinfectant cleaners and hand sanitizer available as needed. If you disrupt another show by entering the space early we will give you one warning. If you disturb another show a 2nd time by entering the space early you will not be allowed to perform at the remaining festival performances and you will no longer be participating in the Atlanta Fringe. Yes, you really do only get one warning. So don’t do it! We really do not want to do that to you. 

Never contact the venues directly. Any venue questions should go to your venue manager.

Do not alter, paint, move or damage anything in the venue that does not belong to you.

Clean up after your show. There are five other companies sharing your venue, so be considerate and leave the space clean for the next performance.

STRIKE
Remember to take everything with you after your last performance, or you can come back Sunday, June 8, 5:30–7pm. You will also be able to donate materials to the Atlanta Green Artist Alliance shed (see details below.) 

You will only have 3 hours for your technical rehearsal. You must come to your scheduled tech time. This time cannot be rescheduled. There is no additional time available to work in the space. Our schedule is very tight, and there is no room for lateness. We expect you to be on time and ready to go, without interrupting the show going on before you.

When you arrive at your venue for your tech rehearsal, the Venue Technician will show you around the space and point out any designated prop or scenic storage.

During your technical rehearsal, you will be able to load in any items approved for storage at the venue, set sound and lighting cues with your technician, and run your show with all technical elements. There will be 2 fringe technicians at your technical rehearsal, but only 1 technician will be running both lights and sound at each performance. So your cues need to be staggered and simple. You should not have more than 25 cues. If you do have more than 25 cues, please plan to provide a person to run cues alongside your Fringe tech for your performances.

Please bring an accurate, clean copy of your script, and a list of what cues you know you will need. This will speed up the tech process and gives the technician something on paper to work from. Click here for a sample cue sheet.

Performances are scheduled every 105 minutes, but each show will be 60 minutes or less. In the 45 minutes between shows, the first 15 minutes is for the previous show to strike their set or any props, then your show will have 15 minutes to set up, and the last 15 minutes is for the audience to be seated. If you have a lot of props or scenic elements, you may want to practice setting up in less than 15 minutes. There are five other companies sharing your venue, so be considerate to leave the space clean for the next performance. (See Festival Rule #4 in the previous section.)

In some venues, if the performing company wants to rearrange audience chairs, they can, but they must provide the labor and do so, and must get it done within their 15 minute setup/breakdown time. Seats must be restored to original seating configuration during the 15 minute strike time. Artists will only have access to the venue performance space 15 minutes before their performance time.

Artists are welcome to provide paper programs, or a sign with a QR code to a digital program, to their box office manager at their first performance to be put out at each of their showtimes.

Artists are welcome to do archival videotaping or photography on their own; simply arrange the date and time in advance with Nadia. For free attendance, your photographer will require one of your 10 show-specific comps; please do not request a badge for them unless they’re a significant member of your artistic team.

Artists are welcome to sell their own merch, but Fringe cannot provide any staff, payment methods, or extra tables or chairs, or even guarantee dedicated space for a merch table. 

STRIKE — Remember to take everything with you after your last scheduled performance, or you can come back on Sunday, June 8 between 5:30–7pm to load out items.

Click here for sample cue sheet. 

Everything you need to know about your venues is available via Eventotron. If you have any further questions please reach out to your venue manager.

The Atlanta Green Artist Alliance is an INCREDIBLE local resource that provides free materials to local artists, with the mission of keeping these materials out of our landfills by passing them on for re-use. You’ll be able to use them (and their resource hub, aka The Shed) to donate anything you don’t feel like taking with you when you strike, or maybe even nabbing something special that you need! 

Information about the Shed can be found at https://atlantagreenartistalliance.org/agaa-shed, which also has up-to-date hours. They typically have availability on Saturdays from 11am-2pm, but with enough heads up they can probably figure out another day during the week for artists to drop off or pick up materials. The Shed typically takes and has materials such as lumber, props, paint, hardware, and some lightning equipment.

They are located at South River Art Studios, 1300 Fleetwood Dr SE 30316. For contact, reach out to info@atlantagreenartistalliance.org, or DM them on Instagram at https://atlantagreenartistalliance.org/agaa-shed.

Payments will be disbursed through Eventotron. Make sure your details are correct in your account. We will not send payment disbursals without all paperwork in hand (artist waivers, W9s, etc).

Artists will receive 100% of their base ticket sales, minus ticketing fees. After fees, artists get $12 for every ticket sold or multi-pass admitted. Our 2024 average payout = $650 (one weekend, 4 showtimes).

You’ll receive your payout and box office reports, including comped tickets, 4-6 weeks after the festival closes.

Please allow 4-6 weeks after close of festival for payments (July 7-21).

Any prize money won from Fringe awards will be mailed as a check along with box office revenue. 

We must have a W9 on file to pay you – download the form here – Only primary contact may submit ONE W9 per production.

Click here to see a sample of the Box Office Report.

Wear your artist’s badge at all times for admission to shows. Each production is allotted up to 10 artist badges, which allow artists to see other shows (on a RUSH basis) when they’re not performing. We use the performance waivers to determine how many artist badges to allot to your production. If we do not receive a signed waiver from someone, they will not gain admittance to any part of the venue except the audience until we have a waiver in hand. We also have to order the printing and lanyards from vendors, so we won’t have back-up badges for late signers. Schedule some time in your rehearsal schedule before May 1 to go over the waivers and have everyone sign.

You must show your artist badge at the venue box office and then you will be admitted 5 minutes before the show starts IF seats are available. We want all artists to make as much money as possible, so paying customers get first admission. Please be understanding and respect this rule!

We want you to see as many performances as possible! We consider this a huge perk of participating in the Atlanta Fringe, since you can see a lot of shows, connect with one another, admire each other’s skills, and be creatively inspired and motivated by all the talent and commitment on display! Do not share your badge with patrons or anyone other than the designated people on your performance waiver. We determine the number of badges allotted to your group by the number of names on your performance waiver.

Make sure all crew members (not just cast) who are coming with you sign the waiver. If you need more than 10 badges and cannot share, we recommend purchasing multi-show passes (which are shareable until depleted).

As we’ll discuss in the Marketing section, we’ll have a team of photographers and videographers wandering in and out of your shows throughout the festival. We’ve traditionally used these images and videos just for Atlanta Fringe promotional purposes, but this year we’re offering them to the artists as a perk for participating in the festival. With so many artists this year, we cannot guarantee that we will be able to get to everyone, but we will do our best!

You are free and clear to use these pics and videos to promote yourselves, no license or permission needed (although, where appropriate, please credit “Courtesy of the Atlanta Fringe Festival” and give us a tag on social media).

It will take several months until these are available (we typically end up with 1200+ media files to sift through at the end of the week), but if you let us know about an urgent need — if you’re on tour or about to mount a new production of your show — we can expedite processing your materials. The files will be made available via a folder on our Atlanta Fringe Google Drive.

FYI – these pictures and videos will be mostly untouched, but we will do basic editing and color correction as needed. For the most part, though, they will be the best pictures we collected as they came out in-camera, and we will leave it to you to do any cropping or further editing so you can use them going forward.

$150 Audience Pick for Ensemble Performance (4+ cast and crew)
$150 Audience Pick for Solo/Small Group Performance (1-3 cast and crew)
Audience members will be able to vote online for their favorite Ensemble and Solo/Small Group performance.

We determine which size category to place your show into based on the number of names on your performance waiver. If you only have two performers onstage, but a crew of 7 who all receive artist badges, your show will be placed in the large ensemble category. This award is on the honor system because we don’t have the time or resources to be tracking IP addresses (and the FBI said it didn’t seem like “a good use of their resources.” RUDE). Our only real indicator of cheating is if a show receives more votes for the award than it sold tickets (including free seats). So if that happens, we will disqualify that show from winning. Just be aware, if you vote for yourself a hundred times or ask friends or family to vote for you even if they can’t come see you, it is a gamble, my friend! We know how many people see your show and we will check. One vote per category per person, please!

$150 Audience Choice Street Performance
Audience members will be able to vote online for their favorite performers at our first ever Atlanta Street Festival

Tell your friends! – Individual show tickets will be available for sale online via AtlantaFringe.org about 1 month before the festival. During the festival, individual tickets are sold at the show’s venue 1 hour before each performance time.

All tickets are $12 each + a $6 fringe ticketing fee. All prices will be listed as $18 to avoid confusion. We recommend you list $18 price on all your materials as well.

Artists will be paid $12 for every individual ticket sold, while Fringe keeps the $6 fee to cover credit card processing fees and other festival expenses. All seating is general admission — first come, first seated (excluding volunteer comps and artists badges, which are admitted on a RUSH basis).

Available online 1 month before the festival or at HQ during the festival. Passes are shareable and can admit multiple people to the same performance until depleted.

6-Show Pass = $90 (saves $18 – one free show)
10-Show Pass = $150 (saves $36 – two free shows)

The Fringe fee on multi-show passes covers the free shows, so artists will still be paid $12 per multi-show pass ticket admitted to their show. The remaining $15-$20 of the pass’s cost is the festival fee, which we retain.

 ADMISSION TO THE SHOW
There will be two lines that form for admission to the show: a general admission line, and a rush ticket line. The general admission line enters first, since they are the paying patrons. Once they have all entered, the rush line will be allowed in, to capacity.

LATE SEATING
We allow late seating. If this is problematic for your show, please let us know in writing by emailing your venue manager by May 1, 2025. Some venues can accommodate adding extra seats if needed. Do not add these seats yourself. The venue manager and technician will add chairs if necessary and possible.

CHILD SEATING POLICY
Every person (adults and children ages 2 & up) attending a Fringe performance must have a ticket. Children under age 2 are free. In the event of sold-out performances, children under 2 are expected to sit in their parent’s lap. Car seats or carriers will not be allowed to take up seats. Kids Fringe programs do not require a ticket; they’ll be sat first come, first served, until capacity is reached.

PROGRAMS
Patrons will receive the Atlanta Fringe Festival guides at the box office, or as they enter the performance space. Artists are welcome to provide paper programs, or a sign with a QR code to a digital program, to their box office manager at their first performance to be put out at each of their showtimes. Our volunteers can distribute them to the audience before your show.

CURTAIN SPEECH
There will be a curtain speech before each show. We will welcome the audience and briefly talk about the festival, sponsors, nightly events, etc. We will remind the audience to turn off their cell phones and that no unauthorized photography or video is allowed. Once our curtain speech is finished, we will turn it over to you, starting your 60 minutes. You are welcome to have a representative give an additional curtain speech that is more specific to your show, or you can just start the show!

POST SHOW
After you have brought them to their feet, cheering your brilliance…We hope you will take a brief moment at the end of your show to thank the audience, remind them of your other show times, encourage them to vote for you in the Audience Choice Award, encourage them to fill out the AFF audience survey which will be sent to them via email, and lastly, recommend they go see other shows too. We love to see artists supporting each other and fostering the festival community… and besides, you already have their money.

TIME LIMIT
Consistent start times are important to ensure a fair and professional experience for all festival artists and the audience members. Due to our tight schedule, we are very strict about show run times. Your performance is not allowed to run over the allotted 60 minutes. If you do run over, you will receive a verbal warning from your technician after the performance, and we expect you to make cuts to your show to stay within the designated time limit at your next performance. If it happens a second time, we will end your show by fading to black at 60 minutes. You will not be allowed to perform at the remaining festival performances and you will no longer be participating in the Atlanta Fringe. Yes, you really do only get one warning. So don’t run over! We really do not want to do that to you. Everyone wants to see you succeed. This is to keep everything running smoothly for everyone, to give each artist their allotted time to set up, and for us to seat their audience. It’s important for everyone to respect the schedule so we can keep the festival rolling along.

• Hustle – you’re gonna have to be ready to put in the work. We have a lot of suggestions in this guide and we hope you’ll take advantage of all of them (or as many as you can get to.) We know it’s a pain to have to think of that on top of creating your art, but That’s Showbiz, Baby
• Think visual – People do not spend money on something unless they know what it is. Make sure your promotional images and videos clearly show who you are and what you’re doing. That doesn’t mean they have to be basic or simple: you can still make them look really arty and cool! But this city (and festival) is a crowded field, and you want to be sure that people can look at your posters, flyers, promotional pics, videos, and immediately understand you. “Ohhh, it’s a show with big oversized puppets. Fun!”  
• Market face-to-face – we get it: everybody loves the internet, loves just leaving flyers in a coffee shop, and we’re artists so we all have social anxiety, but the shows that have done the best in our festival have done the hard work of going out into the community to promote themselves. Our venues are centrally located in parts of Atlanta that are artist-friendly, so there are definite opportunities for busking, handing out postcards on street corners, or however else you want to promote yourselves. Get creative! Some shows have printed up t-shirts that their cast and crew wore wherever they went in Atlanta. Then, when someone asks about the shirt, they get a flier! Others drove around town in cars decorated with their show’s logo and information. People with dance or clowning in their shows easily drummed up business by performing on busy street corners. FRINGE IS ALL ABOUT THE HUSTLE, and if you put in the effort it will make a big difference.
• Know how to sell yourself – Make a good one or two sentence description of your show that we can use to sell it. BE SPECIFIC. Let the audience know what is unique about your show so they can know why they should spend their money on it. We pride ourselves on bringing together shows from all over the theatrical spectrum, so stake your claim and let people know who you are. “Our show is a meditation on loss.” OK: that sounds fine but an audience doesn’t really have an idea of what that means as far as the show you’re putting up. “Utilizing shadow puppetry, dance and live music, our show explores the loss and heartache of a family affected by Alzheimer’s.” OH MAN, I totally want to see that show!

Postcards and fliers are the currency of all festivals. You absolutely need them, especially if you’re coming from out of town: you’ll be handing them out to people you meet while you’re out and about, leaving them in public places, posting them in store windows, leaving them at all of the Fringe venues, etc. In our experience, shows that don’t bother with postcards always pay the price in audience size. PLEASE ENSURE YOUR POSTCARDS ARE NO LARGER THAN 4X6” SO WE CAN FIT AS MANY POSTCARDS AS POSSIBLE ON OUR EVENT TABLES. There are tons of websites where you can get a few hundred 4×6 postcards for cheap, or we can connect you with AFF’s official printing sponsor, East Atlanta Copy Center, who will give you a discount. We recommend getting a minimum of 300 printed, but you’re probably better off ordering around 500 (and 20 or 30 11×17 posters while you’re at it.)

SUGGESTED LANGUAGE:
TICKETS $18 (cards only) atlantafringe.org

We would also suggest putting a QR code on your materials that link to a website (either the main Fringe page or your page on our ticketing site.) There are many free websites for generating QR codes. There’s even one built into Google Chrome!

YOUR POSTCARD (AND ALL OTHER PROMO MATERIAL) MUST INCLUDE THE ATLANTA FRINGE FESTIVAL LOGO AND TICKET INFO.

Here are a few great, creative samples from over the years (note: a couple of these were from before we required the festival logo on the cards.)

If you have any questions about the use of our logos or any other design questions, please email our Marketing Manager, Chris Alonzo at
ChrisAlonzoATL@gmail.com

*** DOWNLOAD LOGOS HERE ***

atlantafringe.org/logos

As with other areas of festival marketing, we will be sending around press releases to our local contacts that cover the festival in general and some top-level information about the shows. If you would like, feel free to send around your own press releases with more in-depth information about your individual show. It can’t hurt, and every extra bit of attention helps the cause for your show and the festival in general!

Here are a few possibilities for places to send your press release:

–Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC)/Access Atlanta

–Arts ATL

–Atlanta Business Chronicle

–Atlanta Buzz

–Atlanta Daily World

–Atlanta INtown (monthly)

–Atlanta Magazine (monthly)

–Atlanta Planit

–Atlanta Tribune Magazine

–Bitter Southerner

–Broadway World

–Burnaway

–Creative Loafing

–Discover Atlanta

–Encore Atlanta

–Georgia Public Broadcasting

–Georgia Theatre Guide

–Insite Atlanta

–Theatre In Atlanta

–WABE (radio)

–Atlanta Jewish Times

–Atlanta Parent 

–Butter.ATL (African-American focused)

–Atlanta Voice (African American community newspaper)

–Georgia Voice (LGBTQIA+ focused)

–Project Q (LGBTQIA+ focused)

–Wussy Mag (LGBTQIA+ focused)

Never written a press release before? No worries! We’ve got a sample/template one for you here.

As we’ve said, we’re going to market the festival as a whole and it’s up to you to promote your own individual show. That being said, we’ll provide you with tools to make the work easier for you. Bookmark these sites now:

1. Our official site – atlantafringe.org – everything will flow through here. It will house our ticketing pages, where each show gets its own page (with description, picture, schedule and map). Plus the site has general festival schedules, announcements, and multi-show passes that can be purchased a month before the festival. This will remain a constant, so we advise you to direct people to this page on your promotional materials (“For tickets and more information, please visit AtlantaFringe.org”)

2. Facebook – Facebook.com/atlantafringe – this is our secondary source of info.  WE STRONGLY ENCOURAGE YOU TO FOLLOW US AND INTERACT WITH OUR POSTS TO INCREASE VISABILITY. Facebook minimizes the number of people who will see an “organic” (unpaid) post to try to get businesses and nonprofits alike to pay for ads and promoted content in an effort to reach their followers (and others). For example, we have 4900 followers; an unpaid organic post will only reach 100-200 of those people! (Sucks, right?)

HOWEVER, there is an easy way around this: like, tag, and share the posts about you to extend the reach and get in front of more eyeballs! Facebook’s algorithm rewards interaction. The difference is HUGE. Posts where the artists like and share will get over 1300 hits.

Also, when we post something about you on our page we will link to your company’s page (if you have one.) We won’t, however, tag individuals. So if we post a production photo you send us, tag your actors! Then their friends will see the post and potentially comment on and like it, which will open it up to be seen by more of our fans.

3. Instagram – @atlfringefest – Send us fun pics and we will post them! When posting stuff on your own accounts, please hashtag #ATLFringe and #ATLFringe2025. Reels and stories are also great ways to show pictures and short videos of your rehearsal process to entice your audience. (Our best performing shows in 2024 did a great job of this, providing lots of content for their own audience that we could share with the Atlanta Fringe audience.) Be sure to tag us—we can’t share your content on Stories if you don’t!

You can also do a takeover of our IG stories/feed for a day as a great way to promote your show. Share your rehearsal process, your journey to Atlanta, design elements, whatever you think would look cool! Just let us know if you’re interested and we’ll get you set up.

4. Fringe Blog – We use this section of the website exclusively for promotional materials and interviews with our festival artists (The Buzz Intro Interview, which can be found in Eventotron). Each company will have an intro interview where we ask you some general questions about your show/company. This is also where we’ll be posting any promotional images, videos and whatever else you want to send us.

In the past we’ve received:
• Rehearsal videos/pictures
• Promotional pictures/artwork
• Reviews from past shows
• Videos of past performances
• Video/audio interviews

Send us your best stuff, especially videos! Even if they’re short, people love seeing videos to get a better idea of what you’re doing, and we can put them on your show page as well as our Instagram Reels and Facebook stories. Remember, our audience knows NOTHING about you other than what you tell them. We’ve even had reporters use this section of the site to pick out who they want to interview, or use this page to write previews without even contacting us! Be conscious of how you want to be perceived and all the ways you can entice people to see your show.

There’s really no excuse for bad promotional pictures, now that smartphones and picture apps have given the world easy access to tools to make your pics look awesome for free. Of course, if you have access to a really great photographer with their own studio and equipment and lighting that’s a huge plus! But a high-resolution pic taken with a decent smartphone and edited in a photo app can work in a pinch. It just takes resourcefulness and a sense of style, and you’re a theatre artist so you’ve already got that in spades.

First and foremost: PLEASE NO TEXT. We don’t need your show info in the image because every time we use your image it will be right next to some kind of listing or social media post with all of that information (like, say, on your ticketing page or in the festival guide.)  Feel free to send promotional materials with text and logos for us to post on social media, but for all other uses it’s definitely better for  us to have a version of your art with no text at all.

The question we’re asked most often about pictures is about size, and the fact is there is no hard and fast rule because we use your pictures in so many places and configurations. Eventotron uses a 1000×1000 pixel version of your image for listings, but we can definitely make use of any additional pictures you choose to upload in the marketing section. We may use a landscape version for an image request from a local publication, but then a square version for an ad, or a vertical version for stories/reels. The pictures you send need to be distinctive and versatile. So maybe consider sending us something vertical, 1920×1080 pixels or so, while recognizing that we’re going to be using it in multiple formats.

Here’s an image we got a lot of mileage out of in 2023, of solo artist CB Goodman. It’s great, weird, distinctive, nice colors, and when paired with a description of her show (a clown show about the Garden of Eden) it makes perfect sense and gives you an idea of how fun and silly her show is going to be.

It’s also a good idea to send us performance pictures if you have them (you don’t even need to have pictures from a show – you can stage these!) Local media, when they write about the festival, almost never use staged promotional pictures to go with their stories: they want to showcase that they’re talking about live performances.

The important thing is that these pics be visually interesting, tell you immediately about the shows they represent, display a sense of visual artistry that promises to be fulfilled on a live stage and, most importantly, make you WANT TO SEE MORE.

To help spread the word about your show, post details on these Atlanta event calendars. This helps reach a broader audience AND helps with search engine optimization as folks look for things to do in the city.

• AJC Events https://events.ajc.com/create/event
• ArtsATL.com Email details to info@artsatl.org
• Atlanta Voice (African-American focus) https://theatlantavoice.com/submit-your-event/
• BroadwayWorld https://www.broadwayworld.com/addyourshow.cfm?regid=69
• Choose ATL https://www.chooseatl.com/social-calendar
• Creative Loafing https://creativeloafing.com/Add-Event
• Discover Atlanta https://www.atlanta.net/Add-Your-Event/
• Patch Atlanta https://patch.com/georgia/atlanta/calendar
• WABE (NPR) / Atlanta InTown https://www.howdoyouatlanta.com/