Sentinel theater critic Elizabeth Maupin’s first published review from the festival was quintessentially Fringe: “When you think of clowns, you rarely think of severed limbs” began her positive write-up for the clowning comedy of Toronto duo Mump & Smoot.

The first festival impressed Sentinel entertainment columnist Commander Coconut, who summed up the fun this way: “What we saw we liked, and it’s always good to see lots of people in downtown Orlando, especially weird people.”

The Weekly was always supportive of the Fringe, but in the third year of the Fringe, I think I had heard that a conservative religious radio station had been warning its listeners about the Fringe, while the Weekly ran a headline "Fringe a forum for Religious Right" because of a production of an anti-abortion-leaning play. That was the best and the worst – to have ALL sides of our community offended, but to have all sides of our community OFFENDED.

The Weekly was always supportive of the Fringe, but in the third year of the Fringe, I think I had heard that a conservative religious radio station had been warning its listeners about the Fringe, while the Weekly ran a headline "Fringe a forum for Religious Right" because of a production of an anti-abortion-leaning play. That was the best and the worst – to have ALL sides of our community offended, but to have all sides of our community OFFENDED.

It's where you rented your first Jarmusch film. It's where you got endlessly checkmated at Chess Club. It's where you ate a Rhodehamel "concept waffle" and drank a Stoner (not telling; order it for yourself). It's where you saw noisy bands like SSLOTS or performance art like Le Busboy. It's where you saw Rhodehamel's first Orlando art show, "Coathanger Stories." It's where you dressed up as Margot Tenenbaum and danced under a giant cardboard jaguar shark hanging from the ceiling.

In his address, Dyer pointed to everything the city has accomplished in the last year — including drawing a record 62 million visitors, opening the arts center, rebuilding the Orlando Citrus Bowl, the launch of SunRail, attracting major employers like Red Lobster Seafood Co. to downtown and the U.S. Tennis Association to Lake Nona, and starting plans for a new University of Central Florida/Valencia College campus in downtown. Orlando startups Code School LLC and Pentaho Corp. sold for more than $600 million combined.