The annual Stoke Newington Festival, which had been a local fixture for something like nine years, was scheduled to take place in June that year. The Festival’s highlight was the Sunday closure of Church Street, and its anarchic, peaceful occupation by musicians, food vendors, performers of all descriptions and, at any one time, up to 50,000 people strolling (or squeezing) along the street in what was claimed to be the second-largest street festival in the UK. The Festival had deservedly put Stoke Newington on the cultural map, and was the hedonistic heart of the Stokey summer. All of us who were here then remember it with nostalgia and affection (or remember most of it until about 5pm, anyway).
Musing in a pub one day, as one does, I reasoned that, if there was a festival, then there should also be a Fringe festival. I spent a few years living in Edinburgh in the late 1960s and early 1970s and observed the phenomenal growth of the Edinburgh Fringe at the expense of the Official Festival – this is how the idea seeped into my brain. The idea, however, was certainly not to compete with the major Stokey blow-out but to complement it, and also to bring what was then the unfairly neglected High Street into the festive equation, with sponsorship coming from N16 Magazine. The plan was to hook up with a couple of High Street bars and to arrange a day of music, performance, art, poetry, juggling, tomfoolery, bagpipes (this last suggestion did not go down too well), whatever… and just generally have a bit of a laugh.
It was then announced in, I think, April that, for a number of reasons, the Church Street closure was to be cancelled. Sensing an opportunity, and realizing that the bars, venues and restaurants had almost certainly budgeted for their most profitable day of the year, I assembled a small team of like-minded people and we decided to move the Fringe onto Church Street. The idea was to help these businesses by filling the places with bands, musos etc and to attempt to retain, clearly on a much smaller scale, the spirit and euphoria of the original Festival. From the outset, we agreed that everything, where financially possible, would be free, and the Fringe would run from Friday through Sunday night. Importantly, we decided that we could not accept any licensing, insurance or indeed any other responsibilities. We simply did not have the resources for this. Our role was to promote, co-ordinate and organize the weekend – through supplying performers and PA systems where required, PR and publicity, a printed programme, a website and an enormous amount of hard work – and to concentrate on local bands and artists, of which there are so many in Stoke Newington.
And we succeeded far beyond our expectations. The weekend was a glorious success, with the venues packed, and the bars and restaurants delighted with their takings and with the new customers they had attracted. The Fringe was even then beginning to establish a reputation as an edgy, alternative but essentially community festival, a celebration of all that was creative and artistically exciting in Stoke Newington. Although there were grumbles from some quarters that the Fringe was ultimately responsible for the demise of the original Festival (how could this be? – we were all supporters of the event and we weren’t the ones who decided to end the Sunday street closure), most local people clamoured for another similar weekend in 2003. We supplied it, and back they came, in even greater numbers.
In August this year, we are promoting the sixth N16 Fringe, which is some achievement given that no-one involved has made any money out of the event, and most people have volunteered their efforts, from the performers to all those who have helped out in other ways. The consensus seems to be that the Fringe is now an integral part of Stokey’s cultural life. Over the years we have promoted artists as diverse as Martin Carthy (returning this year) and The Hells, the Mediaeval Baebes and Senser, Mexican traditional bands and Hank Wangford… the list is long and incredibly varied, and covers virtually all types of contemporary and traditional music and performance. Visit our website www.n16fringe.co.uk if you’d like to discover details of all the past events.
We are now, I believe, the only Fringe in Britain without an accompanying Official Festival (the estimable Stokefest is held in June and therefore does not count). This somehow seems appropriate for Stoke Newington, with its individual, unique and perverse angle on the world, and long may this continue.
We are currently scheduling the forthcoming Fringe, which will be happening between 9th and 12th August, at around fifteen venues in the Stoke Newington area. The emphasis will again be on local talent, with a few big names appearing from outside the manor. Full details will soon be available on the website, and a printed listing will be distributed across Stokey at the beginning of August. See you at the Fringe.
We would like to thank our principal sponsors – Next Move, White Hart, Yum Yum and Mercado – and all who will be advertising in the programme. |
