The Fringe

The Fringe Festival was born in Edinburgh in 1947, when eight theater companies discarded from the first Edinburgh International Festival decided to start an independent festival, bringing their work to the Cathedral of Dunfermline, about 20 miles north of the Scottish capital.

The name Fringe actually originated the following year, when Scottish playwright and journalist Robert Kemp wrote, during the second Edinburgh International Festival, “On the fringes [ed. note “fringe”] of the official festival, there seems to be a lot more going on than in the past…”

Over the decades, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival has become the most impressive performing arts festival in the world: more than 3,000 performances a day are presented in Edinburgh each year for more than 3 consecutive weeks, thanks to thousands of artists from all over the world (2025 figures). Its importance has led to the emergence of many other Fringe Festivals: there are currently nearly 300, focused mainly in English-speaking countries but scattered across all continents, and brought together under the umbrella of the World Fringe Network.

FringeMI is the natural evolution of the NoLo Fringe Festival, born in 2019 with the intention of bringing the Fringe Festival to a changing Milanese neighborhood, but even then with plans to expand to other suburbs of the city.

It respects the nature of any Fringe Festival, and is therefore open, inclusive, international, tolerant, multicolored, fun, lighthearted, without forgetting to be thoughtful, reflective, deep, passionate and sincere.

But it also adds two special aspects: the attention and closeness to the area in which it takes place (understood as a set of inhabitants, places and commercial and noncommercial activities) and theorganization divided into neighborhoods, each entrusted to an entity that works in the area or at least knows it well, making it a popular festival with the potential to choose the right locations and activate an audience composed primarily of residents.