I’ve never heard such an un-manufactured buzz surrounding one arts event in Ottawa as the communion coalescing around the Ottawa Fringe Festival in just its second day. One reason must be a huge uptake of social media, especially Twitter and Facebook. But these un-contextualized conversations are a bit overwhelming, like offering 80 brands of bottled to water to someone who’s just spent two months in the desert. There’s something else going on.

Evan Thornton. Courtesy of Red Ships' Flickr Stream.

The momentum’s cause, while not new to Fringe festivals, is unique to Ottawa’s, and it’s streaming out of a Website called Fully Fringed. The spawn of Evan Thornton’s Tron-like brain, co-hosted by Apartment 613, the site is posting reviews of every Fringe show – 19 of the 60, at this writing – and I’ve already heard from a dozen people not in the Twitter/Facebook universe that it has grabbed their attention enough to plan a visit.

The reviews posted are different from the hype of press-release journalism so common in Ottawa, not just in the mainstream. They’re supplying context to what’s happening on stage, criticism and all, even as they are written by friends of the performers.

Thornton seems to like the big chew. Not only is he manning the Fully Fringed traffic-control tower, he’s publishing a gossip sheet called The Jessie, and he’s going to the shows. I had to ask him some questions;

What are you working on right now? “I am playing around with the settings of the Fully Fringed blog to try to make it auto-tweet links to new reviews more accurately.”

How much sleep have you had in the past 48 hours? “4.5 hours.”

Are you insane?  “I’ll be just fine just as soon as my space bar stops grinning at me and reaching over to pull out the USB drive every 30 seconds.”

What’s the biggest buzz from the Fringe? “House lights going dark for the beginning of a show when you know that within 10 seconds something you’ve never experienced before will happen right before your eyes. It’s addictive.”

Are you going to be able to see any shows? “Have seen four already, expect to see at least 20 more. Still nowhere near as many as I’d like to see though!”

This slate of volunteer reviews has taught me one thing: to stop choosing the shows I see by their titles.