Vaccines, theatre and puppet making: What to expect at the 2021 Fringe Festival

Getting the residents of Saskatoon together again has been a long-awaited goal.

Now, people can celebrate together post-pandemic at the corner of 11th Street E and Broadway Ave at the annual Fringe Festival.

Although the festival has a different look this year to ensure safety, it hasn’t stopped any of the fun. Festival goer, Julianne Hermann says she felt safe in the updated environment.

“I think it is a safe way to do it in the circumstances, my family really loved going in the past and we were hoping there would be some sort of thing on,” Hermann said. “Saskatoon has a great community and it’s a really great thing to do in the summertime.”

Visitors are welcomed to ditch their masks if they please unless they’re looking for their seats at any of the theatre spaces during the festival.

People can also visit their mobile vaccine clinic set up just across the street from the Family Fun Zone to get their Covid-19 vaccines.

Vaccination Station at the Fringe Festival on Broadway (Payton Zillich/650 CKOM)

The Fringe Festival has historically been a great opportunity to help artists and their community celebrate together through live music, dance, spoken word, paintings, theatre, and crafts. One of the vendors at the event, Hailey Pankratz, is glad artists and creators can begin to make sales again.

“It’s nice to like see everyone and be able to actually make some sales because (the pandemic) was hard on a lot of people. So it’s nice to see everyone coming together, getting stuff that they like, and spending time outside,” she said.

Pankratz is one of the vendors selling jewelry and art alongside the food trucks in the ever-popular Family Fun Zone.

Anyone looking to keep their kids occupied for a while this week may want to consider heading down to the family-friendly events at the Fringe. Mother and event visitor, Robyn Cadamia, says there are lots of fun things available for kids to participate in.

“It’s been great. We’ve mostly been doing the free Family Fun Zone, and the kids love the face paint and they made puppets,” Cadamia said. “We got to see a few shows and play the carnival games and it’s been really nice.”

Vendor booths at the Fringe Festival (Payton Zillich/650 CKOM)

Angela Christie is the coordinator for the Collaboration Station at the Family Fun Zone. Christie explained that this year kids and their parents can build puppets together based on the theme of the four elements (air, water, fire, and Earth).

“Kids of all ages, (and the) young at heart can come and make puppets … We got four different types of puppets that kids can explore; rod puppets, hand puppets, marionette, and shadow puppets,” she continued.

Live theatre shows will also be running throughout the week. With popular titles like How I Murdered My Mother, The Ballerina and The Grump, and Tomatoes Tried To Kill Me But Banjos Saved My Life.

The full show list of shows and ticket sales can be found here.

The ten-day festival will be coming to a close on Saturday, August 7th.