The festival’s programme went live online yesterday, ahead of a hard-copy booklet launch scheduled for February 13.
This year’s nearly 80 events across more than 35 venues include ROADKILL: The Uber-Cool Musical, a one-man musical performance inside a parked and kitted-out "party van", and BRinG bAcK ThE STaR FOunTAIn, a performance art recreation of the "elusive, mysterious, almost-mythic" Star Fountain once located in the Octagon.
This year also marks the 25th anniversary of the Dunedin Fringe Festival — now the second largest fringe festival in the country.
Co-director Kate Schrader said it would be very special to celebrate 25 years of creativity in Dunedin.
The festival would start with a birthday party celebrating its whakapapa, legacy and all the people who had contributed to building it into what it is today.
"Going from that scrappy team doing it, I think from someone's living room in those first years, to being the second biggest fringe festival in the country now — that's a huge legacy.
"It sort of shows that Ōtepoti Dunedin really punches above its weight when it comes to creativity and community building.
"This is a really special place to live and a special place to make art."
Fellow co-director Ruth Harvey said the impact the festival had in shaping the city was "huge".
But it was getting harder and harder for community organisations to do their work, she said.
To say funding was tight would be "a complete understatement".
"Just like everybody else in our community, we're experiencing the pressures of cost of living and inflation, and reducing levels of support in all sorts of different places. So the fact that we've made it to 25 and we're still going strong is really pretty special.
"Our very dearest hope is that there will be another 25 years and many more beyond that."
The festival runs from March 13 to 23.
