Arts & Culture
June 29th 2010
Volunteering at Manitoba festivals an excellent experience for participants
Festivals need volunteers in order to run smoothly; this is especially true of Manitoba’s summer, when the majority of the year’s festivals are packed into a few short months.
The Winnipeg Fringe Festival will host 155 plays in 11 days and requires approximately 900 volunteers. Volunteering positions can be as simple as selling tickets or ushering shows, and the experience is well worth it according to long-time volunteer Danielle Carriere.
“Once you start volunteering at the Fringe, you keep coming back year after year after year. It’s so much fun - it’s such a good group,” she said.
Carriere has been volunteering - officially - at the Fringe Festival for 20 years, since 1990, the third year of the festival.
“In the second year of the festival, I was with a friend at the Warehouse Theatre and the lineup was kind of crazy, and I wanted to help out. The next year I decided to volunteer formally, instead of just being a busybody, telling people what to do,” Carriere said with a laugh.
Volunteering at the Fringe Festival is a good idea for the theatre buff because every four-hour shift worked earns the volunteer free entry to a play of their choice and access to advanced ticket sales, according to Clayton Winter, one of this year’s volunteer coordinators.
Additional perks for volunteering include a free t-shirt, snacks, coffee and volunteer experience.
But the perks that are officially listed by the Fringe are arguably not even the most enticing.
“You get to see how crazy these guys are. Almost every performer is available after the show,” Carriere said, “You can go to them and say ‘Hey, I’ll buy you a beer at the beer tent,’ and usually the performers will say, ‘Yeah.’”
After meeting many performers, Carriere said that she’s been pleased to see some of the performers go on to bigger stages and screens.
“Every once in a while you turn on the TV and see these guys.”
Helping at festivals often becomes an experience that the volunteers don’t want to give up. Ruth Jantz has volunteered at the Winnipeg Folk Festival for 10 years. Persuaded initially by the free pass to the festival, Jantz continued to volunteer until last year.
“I missed the backstage, and the wonderful, delicious meals they provide [the volunteers],” Jantz said of her one year not volunteering.
With all tangible reasons to volunteer at Manitoba festivals aside, ultimately, nothing can compare to the warm, fuzzy feeling of lending a helping hand.
“It’s a great time,” said Winter, adding that there’s no official deadline for volunteer applications. “We’ll still accept volunteers when the festival starts.”
This article appeared in Volume 64, Number 27 of The Uniter, published June 30th 2010.
