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IF
YOU BUILD IT, THEY WILL COME
This was the instinctual feeling of the organisers of the
first Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival in 2000, and in the
event, the Festival’s success exceeded everyone’s
expectations.
For seven sun drenched days in early May, for the first time
in many years, people from all over the city and beyond converged
on the streets of Belfast’s north city centre to celebrate
the best local talent while also enjoying some of the best
new national and international talent across a wide range
of artforms.
The Festival was a joint initiative by Laganside Corporation
and The Community Arts Forum both of whom have a shared interest
in the regeneration of Belfast’s city-centre through
the arts and cultural sectors. The Festival was based on a
perceived gap in arts provision for younger, less mainstream
audiences, a perceived gap in arts provision during the good
weather of early summer and the conviction that arts should
be widely available in centrally located, accessible venues.
In the Autumn of 1999 a Management Committee was formed comprising
of a number of key individuals from arts organisations based
in the area and Chaired by the distinguished actor and Director,
Ian McElhinney. The challenge was to devise a programme that
would highlight the social, celebratory and enjoyable aspects
of engagements with the arts without compromising the highest
standards of excellence, professionalism and challenge.
What was perhaps most surprising to the Management Committee
was the tremendous breadth of artistic activity already happening
in the area. This included a circus school, a musician’s
collective, two art galleries and a College of Art, a media
resource centre, the Community Arts Forum, creative writing
organisations, as well as cafe’s and bars strongly identified
with arts activity. It soon became clear to the organisers
that a Festival to celebrate all this activity was, quite
simply, an idea waiting to happen.
The Management Committee met on a monthly basis during the
winter and spring 1999/2000 during which time it adopted a
formal constitution and applied for Charitable status. In
April 2001the Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival became a company
limited by guarantee with an independent bank account. Charitable
status is pending.
The Festival was extremely fortunate in having Laganside as
a core sponsor from the outset, as well as having monies allocated
from the Millennium Festivals. Funding was also secured from
the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, Belfast City Council,
Arts & Business, the Northern Ireland Tourist Board, Dunloe
Ewart, Belfast City Council Events, The Esme Mitchell Trust
and the Enkalon Foundation. An inaugural ‘Friends of
the Festival’ scheme was launched which brought support
from the Northern Bank, Harry Ramsden’s, the Cutter’s
Wharf and the Europa Hotel.
With funding of some £80,000 in place, the Festival
Director, in partnership with the arts organisations in the
area began assembling a programme that would take in music,
comedy, literature, film, visual art, circus, street theatre
and traditional arts. It was clear from an early stage that
post-agreement Belfast has a certain cachet amongst artists
with performers such as Germaine Greer, Rob Newman, Bill Drummond
agreeing to take part almost immediately, in some cases for
just a nominal fee. Despite having secured a number of artists
of international stature, the Festival that emerged was in
no way ‘celebrity’ driven but contained a very
strong ‘fringe’ or alternative ethos. Indeed it
was the very organic, local feel to the Festival that drew
much of the positive comment and goodwill towards the Festival.
The Festival was also keen to promote a strong ‘hands
on’ and participative approach to the arts and included
a wide range of workshops in everything from percussion to
digital film-making to stand-up comedy thus ensuring that
audience would be more than mere passive consumers at arts
events. A strong young people’s literature programme
was devised to enhance the teaching of English and featuring
people like Ian MacMillan, Barnsley Football Club’s
Writer in Residence and the world renowned author Bernard
MacLaverty.
The organisers also endeavoured to be as creative as possible
in the programming of spaces in the area and as a result venues
ranged from Irish traditional music in a boat on the Lagan
‘Folk on a Boat’, to theatre in upstairs lounges
in pubs, to Opera in St. George’s Market.
In developing a marketing strategy for the Festival, the organisers
felt that in addition to the more traditional marketing approaches
such as newspaper advertising in the Belfast Telegraph, the
Irish News, and the Newsletter, new and creative approaches
to marketing had to be harnessed to reflect the new and innovative
nature of the project.
A web-site was up and running within weeks and began receiving
a steady number of ‘hits’. Radio adverts were
played on rotation on Citybeat. Using the award from Arts
and Business, two billboard sites were booked and proved to
be so effective that a third soon followed. 30,000 ‘At
a Glance’ guides were produced and distributed as inserts
in the Community Telegraph. A strong ‘live’ mailing
list was built by collating the mailing lists of organisations
such as Northern Visions, The Creative Writers Network and
Catalyst Arts. All ticket purchasers and telephone callers
for programmes had their addresses logged for future mailouts.
Much credit is due to the work of Tonic, responsible for the
design of all promotional material. The design work was highly
attractive, easy to navigate and captured perfectly the ethos
and values of the Festival. This campaign garnered much positive
comment and helped create what many referred to as ‘a
great buzz’ about the Festival. Ultimately the Festival
almost began to market itself due to the aforementioned ‘buzz’
and very strong word of mouth.
The Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival is now an independent
body with a proven track record and should be well placed
to attract significant outside funding. The Festival now plans
to expand further this year, (May 1-11, 2003), with the appointment
of a new Audience Development Officer and the addition of
a brand new venue – the festival marquee. Clearly, artistically,
socially and economically, the case for a Cathedral Quarter
Arts Festival has been strongly made and what remains would
seem to be questions of scale, levels of funding and various
other practical issues. All those who took part had a shared
sense of participating in something new, vibrant and dynamic
and something which perhaps will mark a turning point in the
regeneration of this most historic part of Belfast.
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