What is a fringe festival?

Fringe Festivals (Wikipedia link here) exist throughout the world as havens for underground and emerging arts scenes and have been around for more than 60 years. The Fringe concept was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. In 1947, eight performance groups appeared uninvited on the “fringes” of the exclusive Edinburgh International Festival. The Edinburgh Festival Fringe has since grown into the largest arts festival in the world, and one of the most popular.

So if that can work in the art’s sector, why not apply it to the mobile technology sector? We have a fantastic show every year with Mobile World Congress which means there are many thousands of mobile executives in town for the week. So why not show them a different side to our mobile industry and create some new ways to network, showcase our knowledge and cement existing and new relationships? And why not have some fun while we’re doing it? That is the inspiration for the Heroes of the Mobile Fringe Festival.

We work on a mixed model where there are some events already happening that you can piggy back on as a sponsor or you can create your own event, or host someone on your stand, in your office (if it’s local to Barcelona) so they can create theirs. This means everyone has the opportunity to participate and it means that we can support work and businesses in the wider mobile community no matter what your size or budget. No event too big or too small to qualify.

So if you’re in Barcelona this year for Mobile World Congress, why not join the fun on the fringe too? Lots of ways to get involved from attending events to hosting and running them. We’ll also have some fringe reporting too so if you can’t be there in person, you can see some of what’s on from the comfort of your laptop or mobile device.

The festival will start on Sunday 26 February and finish on Friday 2 March 2012. It will include a variety of events, large and small – meet-ups, discussion panels, barcamp, demos, investor & start-up lunch, half-day conference and more, including a bunch of great parties for you to mingle with mobilists from far and wide. Most events are free to attend thanks to generous sponsors, for some there will be a charge payable to the event organiser direct to cover costs.

We have a mailing list so you can keep in touch with the events happening and coverage of the festival itself once it’s in action. You can add your email address at http://mwcfringe.com

Find out more about how to get involved here.

Find out more about our team and our festival supporters here. We couldn’t have done this without their professional and moral support.