THE HEAD of Féile an Phobail said his team are planning to welcome “thousands” of people to live events this summer with the easing of lockdown restrictions – while observing all Covid regulations.
It comes after Communities Minister Deirdre Hargey established a Culture, Arts & Heritage Recovery Taskforce to consider measures to support re-opening and recovery of the culture, arts and heritage sectors.
Féile Director, Kevin Gamble, who sits on the 25-member taskforce said the industry is “crying out” to get back to live events.
“There’s an appetite there for people to try to get back to some form of normality and start getting back to arts, culture and heritage events,” he said.
“You can only do so much online to an extent, but to get that real engagement and buzz in the arts and cultural sector you really need to be there at the events.
“Artists and people who work in that whole ecology of that sector have literally had their incomes and livelihoods decimated by Covid and we need to really make sure that those people are looked after, and the only way to do that is to provide employment opportunities, whether that’s live gigs outdoors, music in bars, or other live events.”
Kevin said the taskforce will look to use data from recent pilot events in England, which had thousands in attendance, to model a local response.
While adhering to the Executive’s Covid-recovery roadmap and with an eye on the progress of the NHS vaccination programme, he said the sector hopes to be “re-energised” and be ready for festival season.
Féile an Phobail is set to return for a 33rd year from 5 to 15 August, with this year's theme reflecting the “resilience” of the local community.
SUMMER FUN: Féile's Kevin Gamble
Last year organisers were forced to host the festival online due to the Covid-19 pandemic, but managed to host a staggering 400,000 guest at over 100 virtual events.
Looking forward to this year’s Féile, Kevin said his team will look to “reimagine” some of the city’s outdoor spaces.
“The great thing about Féile is that we’ve always used different spaces to provide that arts and cultural element,” he stated.
“We’ve looked at how we can better use our outdoor spaces, whether that’s utilising more of the Falls Park, the former barracks site, and other outdoor venues that can still host arts and cultural events that might speed up our return.”
He continued: “We’re very much planning at this stage that Féile will be live again and we’ll be able to welcome hundreds if not thousands of people back to events.
“We obviously won’t have the international element in terms of people coming in from around the world because of current travel restrictions, but Féile very much lives and breathes for that local community input and buy-in.
“Our Féile is very much about the people of Belfast and West Belfast in particular, and we’ll know that they’ll come out in their thousands.”
