'This year is about celebration': Ireland's music festival organisers are back on stage
Avril Stanley, Director of Body and Soul Festival.
Festivals are back and we couldn’t be happier but for the people behind them, the last two years have been a rollercoaster of emotions. From postponing events, to losing teams and not knowing where or when they will work again, the live music industry was devastated by the pandemic. But festival organisers are a creative, passionate bunch of people and they are buzzing to see fields and marquees full again.
For Natasha Duffy, the pandemic forced her to be creative in new ways and her festival, Sofft Nights in Dunderry Park, Co Meath was born out of that incredibly difficult time.
“We ran a festival for years called the Spirit of Folk Festival and had been working a lot in concert promotion and working for other festivals. Then obviously Covid hit in 2020 and we all lost our jobs. Myself, and my two colleagues, Conor and Caroline all felt despondent and kind of desperate, we didn't know what was going to happen and all our friends are in the industry as well so it was a collective kind of mourning.
"Out of that myself, Connor and Caroline said, why don't we come together and actually try and support each other, to try to get work or create work or do something. We wanted to think outside the box in terms of what we could do. And that's where Sofft Nights was created from, we said we're going to create a festival that is COVID friendly within restrictions and talk to our colleagues, talk to the artists that we know to build something and that happened in September 2020.”
For Avril Stanley of Body & Soul the pandemic allowed time to reflect on everything they had created and where they wanted to be.
“The main thing for us about the break of the pandemic was having time to really think about what our festival is. There was an opportunity to reflect on the type of festival you want to be in the future. I realised that we weren't looking to put on the festival we couldn't put on for the last two years, but really to use it as an opportunity to launch a new a new version of Body & Soul for the future that went back to its roots and make it more meaningful and more purposeful, and actually more creative and more compelling.”
One of the most popular festivals in the country, Avril has pared ticket numbers right back to one-third of what they were pre-pandemic.
“It's the festival we always wanted to host but didn't quite have the confidence to. When you start something you're really clear about its vision and its intention. We’ve always had that vision but as we grew and gained momentum it changed a bit. When it hit the 15,000 mark, I personally didn't enjoy it anymore. It had become a huge business. The stakes were so high and all of a sudden, we're in a very different playing field. That meant that we were in a position to have a lot more stages and to employ a lot more people but the place where I love it the most was when it was a more intimate capacity.
“This year have really had the confidence to wear our hearts on our sleeves and challenge the expectation around line up lead festival format. We have intentionally launched without naming our confirmed headline acts and still now have held back on confirming some of our headliners and won't do it and so until the start of June. We obviously have an amazing programme across all genres, really the best I believe it's ever been, but we want people to trust us and to come to the festival experience as a whole. Not just to see a headliner, you know, so there's that sense of discovery and surprises that are as important as the amazing talent that will be there.
“The beauty of this year is that we’re absolutely not compromising any facet of the festival and that's a delight but it's also it's also scary to invest that much into a programme and hope that people will come and love it.” For Neil O'Connell & Orla Buckley who run Wild Roots in Sligo the pandemic meant rescheduling their first festival three times.
Neil is more the upbeat of the two about those postponements: “The last two years were not too bad as it gave us the time to continue building on-site. I looked on the positive side as it gave our team time to improve and build more. God, I would not want another postponement, but there have been some silver linings!”
Orla found the challenges tougher but says that they’ve come out the other side with a better event. “For me, it was a rollercoaster of emotion. The initial postponement of live events was one of the most stressful things I’ve ever been through. On the positive side, it’s become a much bigger event than we had originally planned for 2020.”
One thing that all three agree on is the impact of the closure of the industry on colleagues and friends. People have left live events altogether and rebuilding crews is difficult. The expectation that now that festivals are allowed to run as normal again that they should be just as amazing as they were in 2019 may not be realistic.
“One of the hardest parts has been piecing that team back together again,” Avril explains, “because some people have moved into new industries, other people that have moved out of the industry altogether and others concerned, rightly so, that another pandemic will come. So that's been one of the hardest parts, bringing your team back together, and having the confidence to do that in a world where inflation is through the roof.
"It hasn’t really been spoken about, but we got absolutely decimated and there's a sense of ‘great you’re back, come now and host exceptional events but the work that we need to do behind the scenes to be able to pull off the festival to navigate these hugely costs is really tough. Anyone who's choosing to put on the festival right now is incredibly courageous. I take my hat off to them and I take it off to ourselves as well.”
Natasha says that the sudden halt to the industry left a lot of people feeling numb and wondering what to do now.
“The forced stop led to a bit of questioning myself. Who am I? What do I do? Where do I fit in? I experienced that as quite a low point for a good bit at the start, I know a lot of other people did as well. That’s why banding together was so important. Connor and Caroline and I did a zoom every morning at 10am to make sure we were all up. We’d make plans, and you know, we weren't making a penny at that stage like Not a penny. We were applying for grants. We were figuring things out.
“Some great things have happened for the arts in the last two years. Things like Minding Creative Minds which offered brilliant services like free counselling and Zoom meetups. And then honestly, the government supports that came in around supporting live events through COVID were brilliant. They really did keep a lot of us going as well. I hope that continues like that kind of support for the arts continues.” Above all else Avril, Natasha, Neil and Orla are looking forward to seeing crowds enjoying the festivals they’re so passionate about.
“I’m not so much looking forward to the music acts as much as seeing people enjoy the site,” says Neil. “We are staying humble until we get initial feedback, but I think what we have created for our first year is massively impressive.” Orla is the opposite: “I'm really excited to see the acts back on stage performing to audiences and just having that magic of live music back. For me live music is a really emotional thing, and I can't wait to see that connection happen again between the acts and the audience.”
Avril is just looking forward to people getting back together. “For me, this year, is about celebration. I just want to present the best possible opportunity we can for people to feel so in awe of the fact that we're alive, and that we're together and that we can celebrate, and that life can be incredibly beautiful. The rest is the icing on the cake.”
Natasha is looking forward to seeing Sofft Nights all set up and has her priorities set for the Saturday night! “We’ve put a huge amount into the actual design and look of the festival, so I want to just look at that spectacle because I feel like that makes such a difference when you're at an event. And then honestly, just a massive bop at night. I cannot wait, I have made sure that I'm going to be able to turn off my radio,” Natasha laughs.
- Body & Soul, 17-19 June, Ballinglough Castle, Co Westmeath. www.bodyandsoul.ie
- Sofft Nights, 4-5 June, Dunderry Park, Navan, Co Meath. www.sofftproductions.com
- Wild Roots, 3-5 June, Hazelwood, Co Sligo. www.wildroots.ie
