About

Here’s a bunch of self-indulgent, FAQ-ish questions that have never actually been asked.

Who are you, Festival Freak?

Hello – I’m Pete. I’m an engineer by training who seems to have drifted through software development, consulting, networking, all the way to business analysis. All geeky stuff, to be sure, which is completely at odds with the arty, creative stuff that I love to see and document here.

I love tapping a word or two out – though I accept that I am, by no means, any good at doing so.

I’m the only person who posts any of the content here, so all blame falls on me.

How long have you been doing this?

The first Fringe show I can remember seeing was a performance of Berkoff’s Decadence (featuring the gorgeous Alison Whyte) in 1996; my first Festival show was probably Malcolm McLaren’s yarn-spin a week or so later. Two years later, I quit my job; after the peeps at my goodbye-drinks-session petered out, a friend and I walked down to Rundle Street – headlong into the opening night parade for the 1998 Fringe. “Ah,” I thought, “maybe we could catch a show in our inebriated state!” I noticed Rod Quantock was on – a comedian I loved from Australia You’re Standing In It – and off we went.

Rod greeted us at the door – wacky, I thought. It was a great show and, as we emerged out of the Nova into the still-buzzing Rundle Street, I turned to my mate – “shall we catch something else?” Off to Pablo Percusso we went; it was a great night.

A couple of days later, I decided to have a look at more of this Fringe stuff. Wanderlust got a look-in at the Nexus; but then I wandered back to Rundle Street to the MadLove, and saw the performance that changed me forever: theater simple’s The Master and Margarita.

After that, I was hooked.

I wound up seeing only about 58 shows that year; the scant memories of those shows live on in a spreadsheet, hidden on my PC somewhere.

Two years later, I started writing about every show I saw.

Why do you write this blog?

In 1998, with a mere 58 shows under my belt, I recognised that things became a bit of a blur; that I had forgotten bits of the shows I’d seen.

Now, I don’t like that much. So, when I decided to start writing about this stuff, I decided to do so in a manner that allowed me to recreate as much of the show as possible in my head… to spark memories of the event.

Sure, I could just scribble in a notebook (as I did for a few shows in 1998)… but one of my favourite things when I was younger was the Commodore 64 game-related magazine, Zzap!64. Zzap!64 was special because it published the name(s) of reviewers alongside the games they reviewed, allowing the reader to identify more closely with a particular reviewer (for example, if Julian Rignall raved about a game, but Gary Penn complained about it being difficult while lauding its technical excellence, I could surmise that I’d love the game, but be rubbish at it; a thumbs-up from Penn, but a grimace from Rignall, was something I wouldn’t enjoy). So I thought that chucking stuff on the internet – besides being of little additional effort – may possibly be of some benefit to the people out there who could identify with me.

Which is to say, no-one.

(For the technically minded, in 2000 this site was a Perl script with a flat-file back-end running on SENet’s servers. By 2002, I had a PHP / Interbase affair running on a small server in my home-office; I reckon I shifted to MovableType in 2004 and, after a few upgrades, shuffled across to WordPress sometime in 2008 or 2009.)

Why don’t you put your stuff on TalkFringe?

When TalkFringe was introduced (2004? 2006?) I did indeed register, thinking that I could retire my cobbled-together home-made system that powered Festival Freak… but then I had a read through the terms and conditions. They, rather than the author, would retain ownership of TalkFringe posts? No profanity or abuse? Nothing off-topic? The power to remove any posts at any time? I didn’t like that at all.

So I stuck with my own site. Absolute control… absolute responsibility.

How many freebies do you get?

None. I buy every ticket myself.

See – I like being able to experience this stuff. Even if I really, really hate the show, I still have a begrudging respect for the people who get up on stage to perform it. They deserve compensation for that. That’s something I strongly believe, and is within my means – so if an artist offers me a freebie, I’ll politely decline (whilst being flattered) and hope that the comp goes instead to someone whose mind is blown (like mine was with The Master and Margarita).

I hate your review! You’re an idiot!

Ah – OK. Well, first of all I offer an apology; whilst at the beginning of the musings I offered up a “score” for each event I saw, I’ve never really considered these posts to be reviews (in fact, I retired the “score” halfway through 2006). First and foremost (as I wrote above), they’re supposed to be memory joggers for me. Secondly, they’re an exercise in forced writing – I’m not a natural writer, but I love doing so… the commitment to write about every show I see is an attempt to get myself writing a little more freely, and to find a natural writing style.

Finally… this is all my opinion. I’m not trying to be objective or anything… and if something has made me emote (or not emote, which is worse), then that’s the memory I want to capture. If the memory of the show is associated with the people I meet there, or the conversation in the line outside, or the feel of the venue, or of the weather… then that’s what I want to capture.

Any last words?

Erm… yep! Please (please pretty please) support all of the arts. Think of the genres being offered as the food groups; just as we cannot exist on bread alone, we cannot just live by comedy (or cabaret, or theatre, or dance, or…) alone, either. Try to get a taste of everything…

…and, above all, have a great time. Experience stuff you wouldn’t normally see, talk to people, and take advantage of our wonderful Festivals :)