Lottery
The Fringe Lottery
The 26th annual Ottawa Fringe Festival will run for 11 days, June 15th-25th, 2023. With 50 performing companies presenting upwards of 300 performances, the Fringe is Ottawa’s largest and longest-running theatre festival, returning over $110,000 to participating artists each year!
A proud member of The Canadian Association of Fringe Festivals, the Ottawa Fringe returns 100% of box office revenue into the pockets of its participants – and is committed to giving artists the opportunity to produce work in an uncensored, unjuried, and highly accessible environment.
The only constraints on material or content are the consideration of legality and the health and safety of all those involved, including artists, staff, volunteers and audiences. The Fringe reserves the right to enforce necessary safety measures.
Lottery
All complete applications received before the deadline will be entered into the lottery.
The public lottery will be held on Monday, December 5th, 2022 at Arts Court.
Unsuccessful applicants will be automatically placed on a waiting list.
All applicants will be notified via email of their acceptance or waiting list status no later than one week following the lottery.
Lottery results will also be posted on our website as soon as possible.
BYOVs – Bring Your Own Venues
Disappointed you didn’t get into the Fringe, and too far down the waitlist to have a hope of getting into the Festival? You can submit a Bring Your Own Venue (BYOV) application.
BYOV applications will be available in January on ottawafringe.com/byov.
Feel free to contact the Executive Director if you have any questions about BYOVs.
Participating in The Ottawa Fringe Festival
Acceptance Policy
Applications are entered into a lottery, and accepted according to the following geographically tiered quotas:
- 50% of the spots are reserved for Local artists (applying from within Ottawa/Gatineau)
- 30% are reserved for National artists (applying from outside Ottawa/Gatineau, but within Canada)
- 20% are reserved for International artists (applying from outside Canada)
- 2 spots are reserved for Youth* artists
- 2-4 spots are reserved for the Fringe Open Doors Mentorship**
*To be eligible for the Youth category, the majority of your company must be age 18 and under.
**To be eligible for the Fringe Open Doors Mentorship, please click through here and read about the program.
Application Process
Applications can be completed online beginning at 10:00am EST on October 14th, 2022.
Applications must be received no later than December 2, 2022 at 11:30pm EST.
All applicants must include a $25.00 Lottery Fee, which must be paid at the time of application. Applications that do not include a Lottery Fee will not be processed.
You may not submit more than one application to the Ottawa Fringe.
Each application must identify a Producer. Once submitted, neither the Producer name nor the Company name on your application can be changed.
One person cannot act as Producer for more than one application.
If accepted into the Festival, you cannot transfer/sell your spot to another company.
Please keep a copy of your application form. For safety.
Ready to Apply?
That’s all! You now have all the information you need before submitting your application, which takes less than five minutes to complete.
You’ll receive a confirmation email shortly after your application has been submitted. If you don’t receive this email within 24 hours of applying, check your Junk/Spam folder. If it’s not there, contact us and we’ll sort things out.
Best of luck in the lottery!
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