In 2013, Minnesota Fringe ran August 1–11 and featured 176 shows with a total of 895 performances in multiple venues around the city and distributed 50,007 tickets over the eleven-day event.

Venues vary widely, with capacities ranging from 55 to over 400, and available configurations include black-box, proscenium, thrust or arena stages.

Performing companies that participate in the Fringe split a share of the ticket revenues with the festival and pay an application fee.

[7] Founded by Bob McFadden and operating with a budget of around $35,000, the Minnesota Fringe Festival first ran from June 23–July 2, 1994, in several theaters around the West Bank neighborhood of Minneapolis.

The first annual Fringe was described by Mark Pizzato as "quickly organized and underpublicized", with low attendance reported at its 53 shows, each of which cost six dollars or less and ran under 90 minutes.

[16] While in its earlier years, acts had been selected by invitation, by the new millennium the festival was operating on an unjuried first-come, first-served model.

[18] Seal, the only full-time Fringe employee, resigned as the festival's executive director in 2001 and was replaced by Leah Cooper, who had for the previous three years served as president of the organization's board.

[18][19] Early in her tenure, Cooper hired a full-time volunteer coordinator, a director for Visual Fringe, and a part-time office manager.

[20][21] Cooper in 2004 announced plans to exit the Fringe after the 2005 festival, but stayed on an additional year to help solve fundraising issues that arose.

That year's iteration of the festival was scheduled to begin the next day and the bridge would have connected patrons to neighborhoods in which performances were to take place.

[35] The organization's four staffmembers were furloughed as it began to refund $40,000 in deposits from artists and projected an additional loss of $160,000 in festival income.

Past BYOV shows have been staged in places such as a clothing store dressing area, a swimming pool, an art gallery and a coffee shop.