Review by anonymous
July 01, 2019What I liked
Ben is always an excellent host and he kept it tight and loose with the wild energy of a televangelist pushing theatre instead of religion. The band was polished, and it felt shorter than it turned out to be.
What I didn't like
The awards system needs a complete overhaul. For starters, shows in larger spaces have an obvious advantage over shows in smaller spaces. Whatever algorithm is being used for this needs to be improved upon. And, while I respect attempting to make the awards ‘community awards’ – the ‘community’ is pretty small and cloistered and tends to vote for friends. There should be two divisions of voters, given equal weight. One is made up of the staff, venue owners, Fringe board members and judges. The other is made up solely of the voting audiences, with the math in place to not give disadvantages to shows in smaller venues.
My overall impression
An improvement over last year in terms of pace and execution, though there are still MAJOR issues with how awards are chosen.
