Sligo: Sligo Live Music Festival Sligo Live is Ireland’s greatest folk, root and indie music festival. This is the festival’s ninth year in existence and ran from the 23rd to the 28th of October, all across the town of Sligo. Rory O’Connor is the festival’s executive producer and has been involved for all nine years the event has been running. Growing from strength to strength the festival is now so successful that Rory and his team estimate the local impact to be in the area of €4 million! The festival had a magical line-up of over 80 live acts this year including the famous Imelda May. Performing in IT Sligo, the singer from Dublin played her “fresh blend of irresistible jazz beats, blues and fast-paced rockabilly.” Having previously performed at events like Electric Picnic and T in the Park, it was great to see such a headliner at Sligo Live. LAPD and other up and coming acts performed including the Dublin band Villagers, whose front man has said Sligo Live was a brilliant festival and “the live arena is where it’s at now for new acts to get their break.” Rory believes these bigger and well-known up and coming acts really took the audience by storm. However while the festival is so successful it takes a large budget to keep it going, but Rory states that dealing with stakeholders is becoming more and more difficult as “money is very tight.” These sponsors also want a greater emphasis placed on a more youthful audience. To accomplish this, the committee expanded their marketing strategies to include Facebook and Twitter in their PR.
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The team has always concentrated on international visitors and attracting them more and more to the festival without the help of The Gathering and “this will continue to increase,” he said. However, the festival itself did breach international bounds this year by bringing heats of the 50-year-old competition, “Fiddler of Dooney”, to New York and Boston. A very strong programme of traditional music was also included this year to attract overseas audiences. As with any festival there are of course ups and downs and one of the low points for this year’s festival was the cancellation of a scheduled event. ‘The Soundtrack of Our Lives’ event was cancelled due to the unfortunate closure of the local venue that was to host: the Source Sligo. A sign of the times for most local businesses and festivals. The crew also noticed this year that ticket booking was done a lot later this year than before, as people are searching for more value for money when it comes to festivals and events. Rory also stated that for the volunteers of the festival, organisers must always find ways of giving back and rewarding the people who execute the festival so well and successfully. “They were all wonderful people with huge capabilities.” Looking forward to 2014, Rory and the team are very much anticipating the “major celebration for the 10th anniversary” of the Sligo Live Festival.
Among our festival and event members in County Sligo So Sligo Food Festival Find us on Facebook Sligo Jazz Project: Summer School & Jazz Festival www.sligojazz.ie Sligo Live Music Festival www.sligolive.ie Coolaney Summer Festival www.sligo.ie For a current update on all our members in this county visit www.aoifeonline.com
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