The big talking point of this year’s Sligo Live was the the online web casts from some of the traditional music pub sessions where Sligo Live and the region gained thousands of new friends globally. “If the reaction is anything to go by, this will increase numbers to the festival in the years to come and what a great way to kick off the overseas marketing drive which is now our key focus.” Said Shane Mitchell, one of the festival producers.
Once again Sligo’s dynamic musical heritage was celebrated over the October Bank Holiday weekend with SLIGO LIVE, Ireland’s foremost International Roots Music Festival bringing leading Irish and Int ernational Artists to Sligo. SLIGO LIVE has enjoyed its best year to date with tickets to all concerts Selling out. The Festival had an attendance of over 36,000 people at the eighty different concert, club, session, café culture, street entertainment and market events that made up the festival weekend and brought an estimated €4.5 million into Sligo over the 5 days.
Festival Organisers Shane Mitchell and Rory O’Connor have turned this event into Ireland’s fastest growing Music Festival and have firmly put SLIGO LIVE on the International Festival map. This year’s Sligo Live Festival which took place over the October Bank Holiday featured over 80 Events, 170 Artists, 22 Café Culture Events, 18 Scheduled Trad Sessions, Martha Wainwright, Imelda May, Josh Ritter, The Saw Doctors, Frankie Gavin, Comedian PJ Gallagher, Wallis Bird, Jinx Lennon and Miss Paula Flynn, Chris Meehan and his Redneck Friends, Tony De Marco, Oddsocks Revival, Oisin, Seamie O’Dowd, Fiddler of Dooney Competition, World Air Fiddle Championships, Fantastic Street Entertainment, Open-air Markets, and much more.
Festival Producer, Rory O’Connor remarked “The Festival moved up a gear and enjoyed its most successful year. Almost every one of the 86 performances had a full house and the town was thronged with music lovers darting from show to show throughout the day and night.
O’Connor continued “If anybody doubted the value of entertainment, arts and culture to a community, Sligo Live shows what an imaginative programme can do for an area. We all are so proud that our main sponsors, Sligo County and Borough Councils, held their nerve under the most difficult economic pressure and continued their support. The Local Councils together with the Arts Council and Failte Ireland have been enthusiastic supporters of the event since its inception.”
This year’s Sligo Live firmly establishes the Festival as one of the top music and fun weekends of the year. Since its inception, the festival has been renowned for its warm friendly atmosphere and dozens of performances in every nook and cranny of the town. Artists mingled freely with the audiences and visitors found new friends among Sligo’s music lovers. The friendliness in the festival club each evening was amazing.
The Festival exuded a fleadh-like atmosphere by holding free traditional music sessions throughout the five day event along with spectacular Street Entertainment on the Saturday.
The on-line session webcasts, made possible through an Arts Council grant and sponsorship from local TV services company, Omedia, and Guinness, were watched live by thousands which is a phenomenal response for this medium. Texts and e mails came from music fans around the world including Finland, Pakistan, all over the US, Argentina, Canada, Germany. The webcasts will be posted on www.sligolive.ie and on U Tube in the coming days for those who were too busy attending events to see them
Producer, Shane Mitchell said “We are all absolutely delighted with this year’s festival. Visitor numbers and concert attendances exceeded even our most optimistic expectations and Sligo Live is now developing faster than we imagined. This is a credit to the 100’s of volunteer’s and people who work on the event all year around, making the Sligo Live a truly special community driven festival. All events were a huge success and the strong festival programme proved a winner for us.