THIS year’s Ludlow Fringe Festival has been a roaring success.

Audiences were delighted with the range and quality of the shows on offer and performers loved the venues and the warm reception received from the people of Ludlow.

“We’ve really enjoyed the Ludlow Fringe, it’s amazing how much is going on! What a great town,” said an audience member from Manchester, who enjoyed a mid-week break here and attended six shows.

“Thanks very much to all of you for all your hard work in putting together not only my show but the whole programme - Ludlow is very lucky to have such a wonderful festival,” said Ed Summers, otherwise known as the award-winning comedy magician, Seska.

The festival organisers have reported that the ticket sales were up on last year’s figure, even though this year’s Fringe was a more manageable two weeks rather than the previous few years' three weeks.

They have also stated that the town’s acceptance of a new kind of festival for Ludlow was very evident, with increased attendance at events, as well as lots of positive comments through social media and ‘the word on the street’.

Ludlow Fringe Festival’s managing director, Anita Bigsby said: “ People are obviously really understanding the benefits of the festival - the wide programme of events featuring national and international performers has meant that many more people from further afield were attracted to Ludlow and the town was buzzing throughout.

“We were so pleased by the positive and complimentary responses from our audiences and performers alike, and this has given us renewed vigour to really take this forward and grow and develop the Ludlow Fringe as one of the best Fringe festivals in the UK.”

However, due to funding cuts throughout Shropshire and in the arts in general, Ludlow Fringe’s funding has already been halved and may not even be on offer next year.

The Fringe’s marketing director, Sam Cole added: “There’s never any certainty that we can realistically carry on growing the festival successfully without an injection of capital, so we will be applying for Arts Council grants for specific projects for forthcoming years.

“As Arts Council funding is usually reliant on matched funding and is also helped by evidence of support, we have launched a membership scheme - Fringe Friends and hope that all those who would like to see the festival continue will join.”

The Fringe team have set themselves the goal of achieving 1,000 members over the next few months so that they can be in a position to apply for Arts Council funding sooner rather than later and start booking acts for next year’s festival.

Being a Fringe Friend costs just £10 a year and currently you will receive a badge and a window sticker, but plans are being drawn up to offer members exclusive invites and discounts to events throughout the year.

Memberships are already trickling in from this summer’s audiences but Ludlow Fringe would like to urge people to pick up an application form from one of the many outlets in Ludlow stocking them and sign up to show their support.

You may also see the Fringe team around town about carrying out a membership drive.

Anita Bigsby said: “We’d love to see Ludlow recognised as a destination for seeing top quality visual and performing arts events in all genres and having an abundant group of supporters for Ludlow Fringe will hopefully take us one step nearer to that outcome.”