The Fringe Festival is coming to Hollywood June 17-27 and Theatre of Note hosted a Town Hall to engage participants and to answer the questions of interested parties.

The Fringe Festival originated in Edinburgh Scotland and is the largest arts festival in the world. This is the first year that Fringe is coming to Hollywood and the theatre was filled with excitement and with anticipation.

Hollywood Arts Council, Sacred Fools, Fierce Backbone, a couple of dance companies, East Hollywood NC, Theatre Asylum, The Complex, Moving Arts Theatre, Need Theatre, Theatre of Arts (Fringe Central), and Whitefire were amongst the many in the audience.

Ben Hill, one of the Fringe organizers, addressed the crowd that ranged from Dancers, Actors, Writers, to local business owners and organizations who wanted to be involved and to buy ad space in the Guide and on the website.

The Hollywood Fringe Festival will be taking place in Hollywood, within the Fringe Zone of La Brea, Melrose, Gower and Franklin Ave. and all artists are encouraged to participate anywhere within these boundaries. Anywhere literally means anywhere. Be it the gas station on Sunset & La Brea or the Courtyard at Fresh and Easy. If you claim the space and get the owner’s permission, you are part of the Fringe Festival. If the Metro Station on Hollywood and Vine or the Post Office on Wilcox or an abandoned warehouse opens up their space, you can register your art event.

There are no rules as to what you can do during this festival (of course no animals or humans should be harmed during your production). Anything from music, theatre, film screening, art, dance or poetry slam will do.

Productions are considered to be under the 99 seat Equity plan and if your venue should exceed that, you can talk to Equity and the Fringe folks will help you with anything that you need, logistics, venues, advertising, etc.

There will be an audience award and various other awards. People can also sponsor an award like the Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts, which will give out a green award.

The Fringe Festival is a self producing festival, meaning that you are responsible for insurance and production costs and other costs that occur. Fringe is not getting in your way and won’t limit you in any way. Your limitations are only what the venues or your own limitations are. The Fringe Team is there to help however they can.

If an artist wants to register a performance, they will have to find the space first and then they can register via the website. Anybody who wants to sponsor a venue, give money, volunteer, help in any capacity should contact support@hollywoodfringe.org to participate.

Keep checking the website and also sign up to bigcheap if you are not a member yet, to get updates and to get also audition notices, trade notices, etc. for the Fringe Festival and for other theatre related events.

The Fringe will print 20,000-30,000 Guide booklets that will have all the happenings listed and will allow for plenty of ad space and sponsorship.

The Fringe Festival will be easily accessible by foot, bike, Metro Red Line (stations Hollywood/Vine & Hollywood/Highland) Metro bus lines that run along Hollywood Blvd, La Brea, Highland, Sunset, Santa Monica and Melrose as well as Dash buses. To plan your visit via metro, go to metro.net.

Oh, and the official hashtag for tweeters is #HFF.

See you in the seats and on stage!