‘May have no choice but to cancel’: Singapore Fringe Festival 2027 donations short of target

SINGAPORE – Local theatre company The Necessary Stage (TNS) is once more appealing for donations for its annual Singapore Fringe Festival, with funds far short of its $80,000 target two weeks from the crowdfunding campaign’s close.

As at March 18, it has managed $18,807, which comes to 24 per cent of its target sum. This is already a marked improvement from the 12 per cent eight days ago when it was driven to warn on Instagram that “we may have no choice but to cancel Fringe 2027”.

Donations to the festival known for its forthright confrontation of prickly social issues and support for independent creatives are matched by the Ministry of Finance’s Tote Board dollar for dollar, effectively doubling all donations for TNS.

TNS general manager Melissa Lim says it currently looks “awfully tough” for the festival to successfully attain its goal by March 31. Its previous round of crowdfunding for 2026’s edition held in January exceeded its target of $50,000 by a sliver, but rising venue and manpower costs have since driven expenses up.

There had also been hopes of commissioning more local artists and programming more works to gradually restore the festival to its stronger slate before title sponsor and telecommunications company M1 pulled out in 2025.

The 2026 edition had a roster of just four shows – including Invisible, TNS’ own collaboration with disability arts group ART:DIS, and queer musical A Lesbian Love Story – down from 2024’s seven.

Ms Lim gestures to the shock closure of theatre company Pangdemonium that sent a jolt through the scene when it was announced in February. “Even much larger theatre companies doing blockbusters like them have to consider folding altogether. What more for the Fringe, which is focused on intimate, bold, socially engaged work?”

TNS’ hunt for a title sponsor has so far yielded no fruit, with arts philanthropy a niche option made harder now by economic uncertainty.

There are two options for the festival if the shortfall is too great: present a drastically scaled-down iteration in 2027, which is TNS’ first choice; or seek permission from donors to roll the sum over for a future edition in 2028.

“If they are not agreeable to it, we will look at refunding the donors for sure,” Ms Lim promises. “But we doubt it will come to that at this point. We are determined to pull through with the 2027 edition.”

M1 had been the festival’s title sponsor since its inception in 2005, initially sponsoring $250,000 an edition, but later reducing buy-in to $100,000. It exited the partnership in 2025.

Fringe festivals globally have been important for being platforms for non-mainstream works, often also existing as a lower-pressure sandbox for creatives to experiment. The largest in the world is the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, which can sell upwards of 2.5 million tickets with tens of thousands of performances in venues large and small.

Singapore’s version under TNS’ curation has been more explicitly socially minded, fostering spaces for discussions about mental health, racial and gender discrimination, climate change, migrant worker rights and inequality.

Ms Lim says: “It is the only festival solely dedicated to socially engaged art relevant to the lived experiences of people in Singapore. We are also one of the most inclusive and accessible festivals around, with accessibility features for disabled audiences not just at the performances but throughout the entire festival experience.”