I think you've hit the biggest concern right on the head. The reality is that it takes time and dedication to carve a career out in the arts right now. Fringe festivals across the country really become the opportunity for people to produce their first show, become their festival producers. Our job as festival producers really is about providing them with that first audience and removing a bunch of the barriers to self-production, and that sort of stuff.
That happens at every level and every scale in every community across the country. Storytelling has been happening for millennia. We just happen to do it inside houses of performance. The reality is that we are probably going to see the youngest generation and the oldest generation of artists leave us either for new opportunities or because the struggle is too difficult.