One of the highlights of every Winnipeg summer is the Fringe Festival- a huge theatre festival that has its headquarters outside in the middle of our downtown historic district. The festival has dozens and dozens of venues, but it also spills into the narrow downtown streets, lining them with street performers, food carts, and vendors selling art, clothing, crystals, and anything you can imagine.

I have a special place in my heart for the Fringe Festival. I did two years of my BA focused on technical theatre, and most of my university friends have been venue technicians, stage managers, or production crew at the festival at some point in their lives if they aren’t working there now. In high school my drama teacher connected me with the Fringe Festival and I started volunteering full time as a production assistant when I was 15 years old, for a three years in a row until they could “really” hire me to hang the lights, run cable, and build the stages for all the venues. It was hard work and got me used to being around with big (loveable) burly guys in their thirties and forties rather than girls my age who were getting their first drivers licence. It might sound like it could have been a strange mix, but in my experience people who are drawn to theatre are practical, inclusive, warm hearted and protective of each other and it was an amazing time when the whole city seemed to be filled with older brother types- many who still work there today.

On top of that connection, my friend Jill who owns vintage shop & blog Lune Vintage had a booth for her shop for the third year in a row. As if running Lune on her own isn’t hard enough she also runs the booth at the ten day festival on her own. Leigh-Ann and I saw a great chance to take a day away from our computers that we could use to talk about the second half of the year for Freckled Nest, and to give Jill a day to play with her kids, work on restocking, or just sleep in!

It was so much fun to hang out at the site and bump into so many friends wherever I went, to be around people all day instead of computers, and to be able to sell Jill’s beautiful things! This is what the day looked like through my eyes…

The day was long, hot, and incredibly restful all at the same time. Sometimes summer can slip by before I notice, but being out in it last week was an amazing reminder of how incredibly beautiful the prairie summer can be, and of how lucky I am to have friends who can support each other while we pour ourselves into doing what we love. Online or offline- finding those rare people is an incredible gift :)