From Under the Spiegeltent, the Marvelous Rochester Fringe Festival Beckons

Cast of Shotspeare interacting with an audience member during their performance of Macbeth under the Spiegeltent at the 2024 Rochester Fringe Festival.

The concept behind the first Fringe Festival dates back to 1947, when an invite-only festival held in Edinburgh, Scotland, was interposed by eight unbidden theater troupes who set up and performed at local venues on the margins of the Edinburgh International Festival. The avant-garde performers’ intrusion into the outskirts of the international festival caught the attention of other groups, and the following year, more unwelcome artists made their way to Edinburgh, creating an alternative sphere of performances that came to be known as the “Fringe”.

For three weeks in August each year, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe attracts over two million attendees to view over 3,500 shows at around 300 venues across the city. Over the years, the spirit of the festival has grown internationally; now, there are over 300 fringe festivals worldwide, including one of the United States’ most notable and largest fringe events, the Rochester Fringe Festival.

A photo from Submergence, an interactive light experience synced to ethereal music and listened to through headphones. Photo taken at the 2025 Rochester Fringe Festival.

The marvelous Rochester Fringe Festival made its debut in Downtown Rochester in 2012, featuring 180 performances while attracting more than 30,000 attendees throughout the 5-day event. Today, Rochester Fringe has grown, expanding to 12 days and featuring over 600 events at more than 30 venues, attracting nearly 1,000,000 attendees to over 5,700 performances since the festival began.

This year’s Fringe kicked off on Tuesday, September 9th, 2025, and continues until September 20th, 2025. True to the legacy of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, local venues in Rochester review and select the artists that will perform over the event’s 12-day period. The majority of performances hosted during Rochester Fringe, save for a few major headliners, are curated by the venues in the tradition and avant-garde style of the original Edinburgh Fringe. Interestingly, when visiting the Rochester Fringe Festival on weekends, you might catch a juggler or two performing on a street corner, or a busker singing along Gibbs Street, or East Avenue, perhaps an exhibition of poetic justice for the next artists performing on the margins of a growing festival.

A photo of the bar area inside the Spiegelgarden, a lounge space dedicated to the enjoyment of the Rochester Fringe Festival that features games, food trucks, and nightly films.

The fringe festival features a variety of performances, including circus acts, drag shows, tarot readings, river bike rides, curated dance, interactive light shows, macabre entertainers, and an enchanting silent disco. The venues are numerous, with favorites like the Spirit Room, the Little Theater, the School of the Arts, MuCCC, the Roc Cinema, and of course, the Spiegeltent. You can find performances and venues at the Rochester Fringe Festival’s website or by downloading their app. Many of the shows are free! For now, the Spiegeltent has risen, and the theater beckons on Main Street and Gibbs.