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With 90 shows to stage, and less money to do it with, this year’s Dublin Fringe Festival will still thrive, says its artistic director, Róise Goan

BUDGETS ARE CUT, money is tight, and those in the arts are finding themselves with ever-shortening shoestrings with which to work. But what if you’re the kind of arts festival that’s always operated without an astronomical outlay, used to working on the margins with limited resources and minimal cashflow? And what happens when the coffers are empty but the show must go on? These are the questions the Dublin Fringe Festival – renamed this year as Absolut Fringe to acknowledge their new sponsors – is facing with an already small operating budget being squeezed, and 90-odd shows to put on regardless. But the shows will go on, according to the festival’s new artistic director, Róise Goan. “If anything can thrive in this kind of climate, the work of artists in a festival like the fringe can,” she says confidently, as the festival office buzzes in the background with its usual cohort of full-time staff, interns and oodles of volunteers.