Happy New Year! It’s 2026, and we are absolutely buzzing to get back out there on our mission to show the world why theatre, especially fringe, is the place to be! But before we dive into the new year, we should just take a second to look back at the whirlwind that was 2025. Because honestly? It was a crazy year for us.
A Record-Breaking Year for Reviews
We kicked off last year with a “lofty” goal of 700 reviews. Well, it turns out we didn’t give ourselves enough credit! We smashed that target by the first week of September and kept right on going until we hit 983 reviews – nearly 300 more than the year before!
- London Love: 881 of those were in the capital. Even with that huge number, we reckon we were still only covered maybe half of the all incredible shows we were invited to see!
- Fringe First: 658 of our reviews focused on Fringe and Off-West End theatre. This is the heartbeat of what we do, and we are so proud to support the boundary-pushing creators who are the future.
- Young Audiences: We massively expanded our Theatre for Young Audiences coverage with 79 shows, thanks to a growing team of dedicated reviewers, wonderfully lead by Mary Pollard, all of who are passionate about this vital field.
Beyond the Capital
Growing our regional coverage was a big goal for us, and while it’s the one area we didn’t hit quite as hard as we wanted, we’re still celebrating the wins! Between the admin of running a busy site and manging the increasing number of London reviews, it’s a challenge to push out of London more, but we still managed 41 reviews across the country (big shout out to Sheffield where we did most of these!). If you include our annual trek to Edinburgh Fringe, that brings our non-London total to exactly 100! We’re more determined than ever to grow this in 2026.
By the Numbers
It wasn’t just reviews! We published 282 other articles, including 230 interviews (with a special mention to our 129 chats with all our new friends at Camden Fringe). In total, we published 1,215 posts. That’s an average of more than 3 posts every single day!
And people are actually reading! Our website saw 314,996 unique visitors this year – a massive 50% increase from 2024! (We’ve filtered out some suspicious bot traffic from China to make sure that number is as honest and real as possible). For a volunteer-run blog, that is just incredible!
Looking Ahead: What’s Next for 2026?
We’ve got big plans for the year ahead, and we’re setting the bar even higher:
- The 1,100 Goal: We were so close to 1,000 last year, so let’s aim for 1,100 reviews in 2026!
- Regional Growth: We’re doubling down on our efforts to show that world-class theatre happens in every corner of the country, not just London.
Join the ET Community!
Want to be part of the magic? We’d love to have you! Whether you want to review shows, join our editorial team, or help us manage the website (the “behind-the-scenes” magic that keeps us running!), there’s a place for you here. Check out this page to learn more!
If you have a pound or two to spare, you can also buy us a coffee here. Every penny goes directly toward the site’s running costs and helping us find new ways to support the theatres we all love.
Finally, even if you can’t volunteer or donate, simply reading, liking, and sharing our content means the world to our team of 70+ volunteers. We do this because we love theatre, and we want to see it thrive.
Onwards to 2026—let’s make it the best year yet!
