VENDOR PARTNERS

Our VENDOR PARTNERS are the backbone of the extraordinary community support of FringeNYC. Each provides a pro-bono or significantly reduced-cost product or service for FringeNYC and our artists. The items or services provided to FringeNYC directly replace a line item in the production budget for the festival. In other words, they are helping reduce our costs by providing something that we would otherwise have to find a way to pay for.

Throughout the year, many well meaning vendors approach us and want to provide a free product or service. Unfortunately, the product or service offered are rarely anything that we need in order to make the festival happen. And frankly, with such limited resources we can't really dedicate the time, energy, or space to launching their product in front of our audience. In the past we've even had to turn down those that offer free advertising to the festival. The truth is, we've never bought an ad, in all of our years. So even that generosity doesn't replace an item in our budget.

Everyone you see listed here worked with us to find a creative way to use their organizations’ resources to provide something that we needed in order to make this festival happen. They helped us solve a problem or fill a hole. We are so grateful for their time, creativity, energy, and willingness to come up with a way to contribute – becoming our Vendor Partners, in every sense of the word.

Borders Books & Music again provided a place for us to distribute the Official Program Guide of FringeNYC. With five locations in Manhattan, they are the perfect partner for us. You see, our Program Guides need to find their way into the hands of potential ticket-buyers – and not just serve as a way to waste some time and then wind up in the trash after someone has finished their cappuccino. Borders customers are FringeNYC customers and vice-versa. And the Borders family welcomes our audience into their stores, and displays our program guides prominently. As in prior years, they even assuage the more anxious audience members who arrive at Borders expecting to pick up a program guide weeks before they become available. And their associates call FringeCENTRAL when they are running low, so that we can get them more where they are needed. With locations on Second Avenue and 32nd Street, Park Avenue and 57th Street, Broadway at Wall Street, Penn Plaza, and in the Shops at Columbus Circle, they are an important ingredient in getting our program guide out to our audience in a timely, convenient fashion. Under the stewardship of Daryl Mattson, Borders has become an important and reliable part of the FringeNYC Community. Special shout out to Daryl's employee at the Columbus Circle store who came to FringeCENTRAL and hauled more guides up to his store by hand.

NYTHEATRE.COM is the website of fellow not-for-profit organization the New York Theatre Experience. As such, you might not consider them a natural Vendor Partner of FringeNYC. But over the years, nytheatre.com has become the voice of indie theatre, and under the leadership of Martin Denton, they continually strive to use their limited resources for the good of FringeNYC.

This year, again, nytheatre.com provided an opportunity for our artists to talk about their work in their own words. By providing three questions, which any member of a show’s creative team could answer, they essentially create the one place where an artist can talk about what’s important to them. . .for FREE.

It’s a rare opportunity in today’s media. Just the administration of this task is mind-boggling. But Martin and Rochelle Denton seem to delight in providing another wonderful opportunity for these artists.

In addition, Martin once again hosted his “How to FringeNYC” as a part of our Opening Ceremonies, in which our audience and artists can see previews of shows and hear Martin’s theories on how to get the most out of North America’s largest multi-arts festival. My favorite hints include “see something you want to see and then stay at the same venue and see the next show” and “see a show in a genre you normally wouldn’t see – if you like dramas, see some dance. If you like musicals, see a puppet show”. He trains our growing audience on an approach to the festival that is building an audience for theatre in this town.

Lastly, Martin and his team of volunteer reviewers were again able to complete the Herculean task of reviewing EVERY PRODUCTION at FringeNYC, as well as provide podcasts of previews of the festival. One of my favorite memories of FringeNYC 2007 was seeing Rochelle Denton interviewing our artists in Washington Square Park for the Town Meeting. You can listen to some of the nytheatre.com podcasts here.

In Plays and Playwrights 2007, Martin said:

"Beginning with Plays and Playwrights for the New Millennium back in 2000, we've published nineteen plays that appeared in the New York International Fringe Festival, making that high energy annual affair far and away the most prolific source of scripts for this series. By happy coincidence, FringeNYC and nytheatre.com, the website I founded and edit, both celebrated their tenth anniversaries this year. We are grateful for the terrific theatre that FringeNYC brings us each year, and the smart and talented artists it introduces us to. Plays and playwrights 2007 is dedicated to all the folks who make FringeNYC happen, and especially to Elena K. Holy, the festival's producing artistic director, for fellowship and support that seem to strengthen and deepen every year."

We don't publish books, and therefore don't have as high a profile opportunity to tell Martin & Rochelle how we feel about them. So I'll just use this moment in our annual report to say, simply,

"Right back atcha, Martin & Rochelle".

We were proud to get to work with the folks at Kass & Schaeffer. K&S Distribution once again provided a significantly discounted distribution service to our participants, ensuring that the money that they’d spent on posters and postcards wasn’t wasted. For a mere $150, any of our shows could take advantage of their distribution services, spreading 500 postcards or 100 posters for shows in the festival all over the city. This is a crucial service that we sought someone to fulfill for many years – and K&S is a dream come true. Often the “producer” of a FringeNYC show is also the playwright, director – they wear a lot of hats. Not having to be the poster-putter-upper on top of everything else is terrific.

K&S also provided free distribution of FringeNYC posters and our program guides, a service which we’ve paid $5,000 for in prior years. Gone are the days when our shows found the time to design and print postcards, only to end up throwing them out after the festival because they never found an easy, inexpensive way to get them out into the world. And gone are the days when we carried the program guides around the city in grocery carts. Yea!

EVENT INSURANCE BROKERS, LLC

Event Insurance Brokers once again provided a significantly discounted Volunteer Accident Policy for all of our shows. A Volunteer Accident Policy is required by Actors’ Equity Association and by us, so it is a necessary expense. But it seemed to me with more than 200 companies shopping for the same policy at the same time, there might be another FringeNYC “economy of scale” opportunity to be had. Debra Kozee at C & S International Insurance Brokers, Inc. agreed – and for several years now, their Event Insurance Brokers, LLC division has provided that insurance to any company who chooses to take them up on their significantly discounted rate of $250.

And perhaps even more importantly, they made the administration of the required insurance as easy as possible on our volunteer staff and artists.

Ron Lasko of Spin Cycle has been our publicist since the festival started. I don't need to go into further detail about the job he has done for this festival. If you're reading this, we celebrated our eleventh anniversary in 2007 and that, in itself, is astonishing. There were very few people who believed that a downtown festival of off-off Broadway offerings would receive any press coverage at all, in this media-saturated city.

But in addition to successfully putting FringeNYC on the map, he also offers significantly discounted services to every show in FringeNYC. After all, if all that a publicist is going to do is send out a mass mailing of press releases, Ron figured that as with all things FringeNYC, he could significantly reduce the cost of this service by bundling these mailings. His a la carte press and promotions services average $75. Compared to the minimum of $2,500 that our shows would otherwise pay - it is an extraordinary deal. He also wrote a very intelligent, thoughtful, prudent "Should I hire a publicist?" answer for our shows.

Dixie Sheridan
Dixie Sheridan has been the official photographer of FringeNYC for a decade, I think. Quite frankly, I can't remember when we were ever doing a festival that didn't involve Dixie following us around and making sure to document all of our wacky shennanigans. And I'm so glad she did. . .

Aside from that, Dixie always offers a significantly reduced rate for photography to shows involved in FringeNYC. This not only makes the participants very happy, it serves the festival, too. I'm not sure our shows would warrant the press coverage they receive if they were only able to provide the snaps that the stage manager captured on their phone. . .

Dixie makes us all look beautiful (trust me on this one...) and almost all of the photos you've seen of FringeNYC have been taken by Dixie. She's an amazing talent.

Compucolor is the official postcard printer of FringeNYC, and anyone who has been to FringeNYC knows that postcards are the promotional currency of the festival. Not only do they give our participants an extraordinary deal, they also print postcards to promote the festival itself as well as all of our badges.