The 24th Asheville Fringe Arts Festival

Fringe is a performing arts tradition that started in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1947 when eight performing groups were excluded from the mainstream annual arts festival. They decided to perform anyway, finding inexpensive or free venues on the fringes of the city. The Edinburgh Fringe Festival has since grown into one of the largest arts festivals in the world, eclipsing the original festival exponentially.

Over the years, Fringe festivals have started all over the world from Europe to Canada to Australia to the United States to Asia and beyond. The Asheville Fringe Arts Festival began in 2003 after Susan and Giles Collard of Asheville Contemporary Dance Theatre experienced Fringe festivals in San Francisco and Toronto. They started Asheville’s Fringe in one venue, the beloved BeBe Theatre. But the following year, it had expanded to other venues. The Festival is now a multi-day, multi-venue performing arts extravaganza, with performances in theatres, galleries, clubs and odd spaces that even include the LaZoom bus.

Asheville Fringe continues to ask artists to explore the edges of their work, to collaborate across genres and to bring new and innovative performances to culturally adventurous audiences. We strongly suggest that you see more than one Fringe show because of the incredible variety of artists and types of work. One show is just not enough to really have the total Fringe Festival experience!

Visit the Asheville Fringe Arts Festival website here for the full lineup of events. 

2026 venues include:

• 35below
• Art Garden
• Asheville Community Theatre
• DayTrip
• LaZoon Room Bar and Gorilla
• LEAF Global Arts
• Little Animals
• One World Breiwng - West
• Sly Grog Lounge
• The BeBe Theatre
• The Crow & Quill
• Random Acts of Fringe - free performances that happen all around town!