Durham Fringe Festival takes place in the beautiful and historic City of Durham (a World Heritage site), in the North East of England. 2026 was our 6th year of bringing the festival to life! Although the event has now concluded, you can discover a little more about how the festival works for performers on this page.

We are a curated festival, but our approach is designed to be open and inclusive. We eagerly welcomed applications from anywhere and anybody - we love comedy, theatre, dance, musicals, children’s shows, spoken word, circus, magic, music, mime, and any other performing arts genre you can dream up!

We, the festival, take a central coordinating role. We both select and run the venues and set ticket prices. Performers take home 70% of the net ticket sales, after we’ve accounted for fees we pay on Box Office.

There’s no commitment to perform with us when you apply, and we don’t charge you any fees at any point in the process; not to apply, or to be in our programme, or for the use of our venues, including technical support. If shows accept an offer from us then we will ask all performers/companies to sign a contract, and pay a £100 deposit which is refunded in full provided the performances promised are delivered.