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HISTORY
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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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