Festival FAQs
Have you got Q's? We just might have some A's for you.General Festival Questions
When is the Melbourne Fringe Festival?
The 2026 Festival runs from 29 September – 18 October 2026.
What is the Melbourne Fringe Festival?
The Melbourne Fringe Festival is a 20 day long celebration of all things independent art! With 450+ events presented annually by Melbourne’s emerging, mid-career and established independent artists you’ll find massive public artworks, industry all-stars, undiscovered new talent, and everything in-between.
Questions about Tickets
How do I buy tickets?
Right here, on this website. Tickets for the 2026 Melbourne Fringe Festival go on sale Friday 7 August.
I’m having trouble creating an account.
If you’ve booked tickets for events at past Festivals or at Fringe Common Rooms you may already have an account. Try resetting your password (open the menu, go to Account, click Log In and Forgotten your password?), or contact the ticketing team on [email protected] or (03) 9660 9666.
I’ve purchased tickets but I can’t find them. Where are they?
Your tickets will have been emailed to the address you used to login. Double check your junk/spam. You can also access your tickets on your account by clicking My Orders and Tickets when you are logged in.
Are there any free events?
Yes! There are always heaps of quality free events in the Festival program. You can check out all this year’s free events when the program launches on Friday 22 August.
Questions about Digital Fringe
What is Digital Fringe?
We developed a bespoke platform for hosting a wide variety of digital events. Digital Fringe had its first outing at VCR Fest in July-Aug 2020, and then has become a staple of the Melbourne Fringe Festival since 2020. There’s a range of on demand and scheduled events that you can enjoy instead of your nightly 2-hour scroll through the Netflix catalogue. You can check out the Digital Fringe program this year when tickets go on sale Friday 7 August.
Can I attend digital events whenever I like?
Digital events are either scheduled, meaning they’re only available at the advertised date(s) and time(s) or on demand, meaning you can attend at any time during the advertised date range. You can filter the what’s on page and check event listings to find out what’s what.
Can I attend from outside Australia?
Unless otherwise specified events as part of Digital Fringe are viewable from anywhere in the world until the end of the Festival (in AEST).
Okay, I’ve booked my ticket, now how do I get to my digital event?
You will be sent a unique URL and instructions in your E-ticket. You can also access your digital events from your Fringe Account. Smack the button in the top right corner to sign in at any time!
Questions about Accessibility
Is your Festival accessible for audiences?
Melbourne Fringe is committed to access and inclusion for all people. We believe in the Social Model of Disability, where disability is caused by a society and environment with physical, attitudinal, communication and social barriers. It’s our responsibility to create a Festival that reduces these barriers to enable full participation by all people.
We endeavour to make our Curated Program events as accessible as possible, and we’ve also educated our independent artists in the Open Program around accessibility through resources, info sessions and one-on-one meetings, and have asked them to provide accurate and up to date accessibility information.
You can filter the program by whether a performance is captioned, Auslan interpreted, audio described, relaxed or sensory friendly, has assistive listening available, has tactile tours available, as well as their level of visual and aural content.
We recognise that the experience of disability and accessibility is diverse and unique to individuals, and that artists and audience members still face barriers to access, and we strive to remove as many of these as we can. We understand that we won’t always get it right, and we always love to receive feedback about how we can improve as well as what we did well.
Click here to learn more about the Festival’s access, including a key of all our access icons.
Questions about Getting Involved
I’m an artist, how can I get involved?
The Melbourne Fringe Festival is an open-access Festival, which means that everyone is welcome and anyone can participate.
Registrations for the 2026 Festival are open. Find out more on our For Artists page. Sign up to our FringeMakers eNews mailing list to stay in the loop! You can do this at the bottom of the page.
What’s an Open Access Festival?
An Open Access festival means anyone can be a part of it, and all work is presented by the artists or their independent producers.
Can I volunteer for Fringe?
Sign up to our eNews and follow us on social media to be the first to hear when we recruit volunteers for the 2026 Festival.
When does Melbourne Fringe recruit staff?
Each year, Melbourne Fringe offer a range of highly sought-after roles in the independent arts.The majority of our recruitment occurs from June onwards in preparation for the Festival. Opportunities appear on this website in our Jobs and Volunteers page. To be the first to hear about the opportunities we offer, sign up to our eNews and follow us on social media.
Questions about Marketing
I’m from the media, who should I speak to?
A FAQ about Q’s! For all media enquiries, please contact our publicist, Fiona Brook, on [email protected] or 0407 900 840
Can I advertise on your website?
We welcome enquiries about our advertising opportunities, please email [email protected] to enquire.