Festival ticket holders probably include more 'listeners', and will use their tickets to listen to quality professional artists booked by the festival. People who attend fringe events do so because they sing and/or play and are happy to do just that in the company of like-minded others.

Season ticket holders may pop into fringe events at the times when there's no main festival event to go to. Fringe events also provide a useful role in providing a bit of entertainment for festival stewards and dance team members in between duties.

Fringe people will sometimes go to individual events (workshops and concerts mainly) but usually they will be out of the way in pubs singins and playing. We shouldn't underestimate the role they have in providing free entertainment for local residents who may not want to pay for main festival events. Many festivals are partly sponsored by Local Authorities, say this is quite an important issue too.

The festivals that I've had experience of don't suffer financially in any way by having a strong fringe, quite the opposite, in fact.