Hong Kong Fringe Club pledges to fight to keep its home in landmark Old Dairy Farm Depot as lease put up for tender by government
- Top arts and performance venue says it will bid to retain distinctive home after government puts space up for tender
- Culture, Sports and Tourism Bureau said lease would go to non-profit committed to support of arts and culture in city
One of Hong Kong’s premier arts clubs has vowed to do its best to keep its home in the distinctive red-and-white banded Old Dairy Farm Depot in Central after authorities asked for proposals to take over management of the historic building.
The Fringe Club, which has suffered legal and financial problems in recent times, on Monday promised to bring more acts from mainland China and overseas as part of its bid to retain the lease, which will include a clause to ensure operators abide by the national security law.
“The Fringe Club board and management are committed to doing everything we can to make our proposal as competitive as possible in the coming open tender process,” a spokesman said.
“As part of our proposal, we envision the revival of the renowned citywide Fringe Festival, which has been a hallmark of the club’s history.
“The festival will serve as a platform to showcase both local and international acts.”
He was speaking after the Culture, Sports and Tourism Bureau invited non-profit-making organisations to submit proposals for the operation and development of the building in Lower Albert Road from next year.
The new lease on the club, built in 1892 for cold storage and later extended, will be granted for three years from April 1, 2024.
The lease on the site has been granted for just one year at a time since 2022.
A bureau project brief outlined how to submit proposals and highlighted that bidders would be disqualified if they were engaged or “reasonably believed to be engaged” in activities that threatened national security.
The Fringe Club started to organise concerts and art shows in the brick and stucco structure, a listed building, in 1984.
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The club at present rents part of the former depot from the government and offers free gallery space for contemporary art exhibitions and performances.
The leases had earlier run for five years at a time, but the Fringe Club has only been granted yearly tenancies for the past two years.
The club has been embroiled in a string of internal and external problems since 2022, including the threat of liquidation and a change in leadership.
Founder Benny Chia Chun-heng and former administrator Catherine Lau Kam-ling in September 2022 filed a legal claim against Hong Kong Festival Fringe Ltd, the non-profit parent of the club, over what were said to be unpaid salaries.
The writ said Chia had not been paid for 14 years and Lau for eight up to April 2020.
The dispute became public less than a month after the two stepped down from their roles and six months before the first one-year lease expired.
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Anson Chan Yiu-cheung, acting chairman of the club’s board of directors, told the Post at the time that if the legal action continued, the club would have no choice but to go into liquidation.
Chan added that the club had been running deficits since the financial crisis of 2008 and said the decision to only issue a yearly lease had added to uncertainty over its future.
The club board submitted a proposal to the then Home Affairs Bureau in 2022 that detailed how it planned to run the club under the next lease, which was granted in April 2023.
A spokesman for the bureau said that the future occupier of the venue would be chosen through an “invitation for proposal exercise”, which it said would identify the most suitable non-profit to run it.
The spokesman added that non-profits, including the Fringe Club, could submit proposals and promised that the organisation selected would continue to support the development of arts and culture in the city.
The bureau spokesman added the deadline for applications was October 20 and the new occupant was expected to be announced by the end of the year or early 2024.
