Shay Mace
Award-winning Scottish feminist theatre company F-Bomb Theatre first launched their acclaimed FemiFringe Guide back in 2022, a print guidebook where artists who identify as women or as being a marginalised gender could submit their work to be included, and allowing audiences to interact more adeptly with work from those creative and personal backgrounds.
F-Bomb have been quick to point out the official Edinburgh Fringe website includes search filters for artists of colour, disabled-led work, neurodiversity-led work and LGBTQ+ work. However, there is still no equivalent filter for work led by women and gender minorities.
In response, they have launched the FemiFringe Online Platform for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2026 – free to use, and free for eligible shows to register on. The site allows users to browse eligible shows by genre, venues and dates, and by “Intersections” such as Working Class, Artists of Colour and Early-Career over 40. Audiences can also favourite shows, build a personal schedule and explore listings on a map.
In tandem, thousands of free print copies of the FemiFringe Guide have been distributed across Edinburgh. F-Bomb highlight that the move online comes in response to the growth of the guide as an unfunded artist-led organisation.
F-Bomb’s Creative Producer, the playwright Rachel O’Regan, told Binge Fringe: “When we launched FemiFringe in 2022, the response was immediate. Audiences were telling us they wanted to support this work, but they could not easily find it.”
She adds, “Visibility affects who gets reviewed, who sells tickets, who gets industry interest and who gets
remembered after August. When you are one show among thousands, being searchable matters.”
Company Founder and Operations Manager Sally Quinn added “Access at the festival is not
only about who can take part, it is also about who gets found. We want to make sure that
feminist work is not hidden in plain sight.”
The FemiFringe platform is now available at: https://femifringe.fbombtheatre.co.uk/
Eligible shows can register for free at: https://femifringe.fbombtheatre.co.uk/register
