We’ve been thinking for the past few days if it’s suitable to talk about our experience at Sibiu International Fringe Festival. We are tolerant with unexperienced festival staff members, but when our limit is reached, we want to warn other that might be affected in the future. We don’t like to point fingers, but everybody has to know their expectations won’t be met by this festival.
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The name of the festival is misleading because most of FRINGE festivals are very well organised. The fact that it takes place in Sibiu is also misleading because this city is an art-oriented one, a city of good taste and full of creative people. We have beautiful memories in Sibiu.
Accommodation
We arrived at Sibiu after midnight and we’ve been accomodated at a Sports Center falsley advertised as a 2 star hotel. The bathroom floor had water all over it throughout our stay. No hot water, if you didn’t know how to turn it on directly from the pipe. No light in the room. Lunch and dinner have been offered by the festival in a fast-food joint. We were sick after eating there. The coupons we had for accessing the food had been hunted by us through Sibiu because they didn’t leave them at the “hotel’s” reception desk. Breakfast included boiled and then frozen eggs and molded bread.
Our performance
We performed Reflection (photo) at Teatrul Mic in Sibiu, basicaly a loft unequipped for a theatre performance. The sound system was a home-use sound system, not a stage one. The stage was terrible like the whole room. The technical rider, sent one month before arriving in Sibiu, was almost completely ignored by the festival. We waited for the festival’s staff a long time in front of the theatre every time we needed access. First time, we waited for 10 minutes so they could find the key under some rock around the theatre. We found the key… After several hours, before our performance, we found out they didn’t have yellow filters for the lights. The volunteer that was our contact didn’t know anything about anything. He was completely useless. Nobody knew how many people will attend the performance, even though the tickets have been sold in advance on a ticket online platform.
We performed, even in these awful circumstances, because we respect our audience.
This article has the sole purpose of informing independent companies that would want to go to Sibiu International Fringe Festival. Don’t do it. It’s not worth the trouble.