SEBERANG PERAI, March 17 — The Butterworth Fringe Festival (BFF) that highlights Butterworth and Seberang Perai will return this August with the aim of turning the festival into a larger event than the main George Town Festival (GTF).

GTF director Joe Sidek said it will be one of the few festivals in the world that is totally free for the public.

"A fringe festival can become a larger festival than the main festival and we can get inspiration from festivals like the Adelaide Fringe Festival and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, both festivals have become bigger than the main festivals," he said at a press conference announcing BFF 2016 at Seberang Perai Municipal Council (MPSP) today.

For example, Joe said the Edinburgh Fringe Festival is 70 years old and has become bigger than the Edinburgh Festival itself where it goes on for 25 days with over 3,000 shows.

"In Australia, the Adelaide Fringe Festival, the main Adelaide Festival and a string of other festivals were all held in March so the festivals were known as Mad March and it managed to churn out AUD250 million income," he said.

He said the Butterworth Fringe Festival has the potential to become much bigger and more prominent than GTF with strong community support.

"We are now open for proposals from the local communities to send in proposals to us so that I can put in local content for the festival. If you don’t send in proposals for local content, how can I put in more local content in the festival," Joe said.

The proposals should be community-centric, fun, intriguing and extreme, he added.

The BFF was originally initiated by MPSP and organised by GTF last year, with the support of Think City and the Penang state government.

"The festival is in line with MPSP’s “Butterworth Baru” project, which aims to foster the arts and culture scene in Butterworth specifically, and the Seberang Perai mainland in general," he said.

Joe also called for partners and sponsors to support the event, which will fall on August 13 and 14 as part of GTF.

"We want partners to come in to help us nurture the festival and we can offer numbers to our partners such as the 500,000 visits we get on our website after GTF," he said.

Joe is also in the midst of discussion with Google and iFlix now on collaborations to promote the festival locally and internationally.

"One of the most important things about the festival is to make local communities proud of their place because placemaking is one of the most important roles that a festival can play," he said.

The open call for proposals closes on April 17. Proposals can be submitted via http://georgetownfestival.com/BFF2016.