The annual festival returns with an innovative, one-off programme for its 26th edition.

Dublin Fringe Festival will be returning this year for its 26th edition. This year’s festival has been named Pilot Light Edition and will run from the September 5-20.

Fringe has promised to reach every audience member with shows across Dublin or online events whilst strictly abiding by government guidelines to provide a safe environment for
everyone involved.

Ruth McGowan, Festival Director said, “Dublin Fringe Festival are responding to the world around us with a new festival format this year, but our programme remains devoted to artistic risk, active spectatorship and shared moments in time.”

Throughout the 16 days of the Festival, it will host over 100 performances in 13 venues across the city. Fringe will premiere the reopening of venues like the Abbey Theatre, Draíocht and The Projects Arts Centre, which have all been closed since March.

The Festival will also host multiple new outdoor stages across Dublin as well as on the DDR radio station at home. Outdoor events with strict social distancing will take place in Dalymount Park, Dublin Castle, the Irish Georgian Society and Temple Bar’s Gallery of Photography.

This year’s Fringe has been split into seven chapters. The first theme, ‘Come Out To Play’, is based on the arts outside. It involves outdoor DJs and music as well as at home gardening packages.

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Dublin Fringe Festival is bringing you back to live! This September, we will fill our beloved city theatres, even a football stadium with the joy of live performance. In the rain, on the airwaves and out in nature, there is so much to experience for 16 glorious days and nights! View the full programme and buy tickets online at fringefest.com #dublinfringe #keepherlit #pilotlight

A post shared by Dublin Fringe (@dublinfringefest) on Aug 5, 2020 at 5:01am PDT

Other chapters of the Festival include ‘Trailblazers’, “Tailor-made performances for the times we live in”, as well as ‘Lights Up’, which features the reopening of theatres and venues across Dublin. The Festival will host many conversations, live and on the radio at home. It will cover topics from Black, Queer Afrofuturistic visionaries to influential Irish women who are over 70.

The 26th edition of the festival will give a platform to ‘Young Radicals’ – The Fringe for young audiences and will also host works from artists in response to the theme of ‘Utopias & Uprisings’ as part of ‘Utopia or Bust – Manifestos for a New Era’. Artists such as Gender.RIP, WeareGriot and Glitter Hole will be given the opportunity to express their hope for Ireland as a Utopia.

Fringe will host ‘Artists at Work’, where an audience can see artists like Orla Graham, Isabella Oberländer and Seán Millar prepare for a post-Covid career.

Dublin Fringe Festival will be a very welcome dose of the arts for performers and audience in Dublin, whether you’ll be taking part at home or in one of the venues across the city.

Photo: Dublin Fringe