The Christchurch fringe Fringe Festival launch is this Saturday the 11th starting at 1 pm in the CBD carpark 208 Madras Street. Christchurch is the only major centre in NZ without a fringe festival.

Sam Fisher the director says he thinks it's because perhaps those of us in Christchurch may take ourselves too seriously "Fringe is about trying things and recognising there is no one right way to create art, it's about trying. In keeping with this we've spent very little and just organised it with a 'yes' attitude. We have 22 events, have distributed 4,000 programmes and we have a packed festival." https://www.facebook.com/chchfringe?ref=hl

Christchurch's spiritual leader The Wizard of New Zealand will formally open the 3 weeks of fringiness at 2 pm, alongside the other Wizards "We asked the Wizards as they are committed to rebuilding Christchurch, not demolishing it. While some are saying we must dismantle the symbols of our city, they stand for building on what remains. But we're not sure what reamins."

"We'd like to thank the wizards. We'd also like to acknowledge Winter Chill who have made activities possible for under 25 year olds, thanks also to Christchurch Casino and CBD for venues, 0800Phantom for helping with flyers. The aim was not to run this fringe, but ones in coming years. Ideally it would be nice to keep doing it on the smell of an oily rag, but it's clear we need traditional media as social media hasn't been enough by itself."

"On Saturday we have acts giving the flavour of the ffestival which will be on site till 5. These include freak acts like a fortune teller with no idea, a bearded man and an inflexible contortionist. There will be music, some belly dancing, body painting and other samples.

"We're wanting people to pop in and see what a fringe festival can be."

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