A BIG SUCCESS
20,000 ATTEND SLIGO LIVE AS BIG CHANGES IN PIPELINE FOR NEXT YEAR
SLIGO Live has done it again. Twenty thousand people attended 146 gigs over the bank holiday weekend for the 13th year of the biggest music festival in the North West. Despite a ‘difficult financial year’ the team behind the event pulled it out of the bag with big names like Imelda May, Gilbert O’Sullivan and Dami- en Dempsey. Organiser Rory O’Connor told The Sligo Champion: “Funding and sponsorship was down this year. We had to make do with reduced resources. Because of the recovery there is more demand for acts so it’s more competitive and an arduous task to secure them. Thankfully we still have the support of a lot of local businesses and agencies. Leader was fantastic. We attracted sell out crowds and people were very happy with what we had to offer.”
Next year Rory says the festival will be bigger and better than ever with plans for an extended time period but he warned ‘we need everyone to be singing off the same hymn sheet.’ “We are looking for adventurous changes but we need investment. People can’t take Sligo Live for granted. If the support is there it will happen,” he said.
SLIGO was a true ‘music city’ over the long weekend as 20,000 revellers attended 146 gigs around town for Sligo Live 2017.
270 performers took to the stage over the six days of the annual festival which ran from Wednesday 25 th October. Now in its 13th year Sligo Live is a firm favourite on the social calendar in the North West. Organisers are delighted with the sell out festival but admit that it has been a difficult year.
Rory O’Connor explains: “We can still attract top acts but with the economic recovery - particularly in Dublin - it is getting more difficult to do that because acts now depend on touring more than 10 years ago. It is a much more competitive market for us. We apply for up to 300 acts every year and work through a process of elimination. Sometimes musical management tell us straight off that it won’t happen. We have to see who is cost effective and ask will it work for us and the acts.”
The team behind Sligo Live worked tirelessly to secure the headline acts for this year and the big names did not disappoint. Crowds poured into the Knocknarea Arena at IT Sligo - the biggest venue of the festival - to see Imelda May on Friday, Gilbert O’Sullivan on Saturday and Damien Dempsy and Stockton’s Wing on Sunday.
A capacity crowd of 1,400 enjoyed the high energy concert by Liberties star, Imelda May. Her performance was effortless, her natural ability to engage with the crowd a joy to experience. Rory says: “Imelda May was fantastic, a very good show. There was a great crowd. People loved her.”
During the gig Imelda revealed that earlier that day she had recorded with Sligo band Dervish. “I spent some time with Dervish and my lovely friend Cathy Jordan, who is here tonight,” she said. Her up tempo blues numbers got the crowd moving while during her acoustic, pared back, soulful songs like ‘ The Girl I used to Be’ a stillness descended on the arena.
Saturday saw singing legend Gilbert O’Sullivan celebrate 50 years in the music business as he brought the audience on a journey through the decades of his career.
“I do not think I have ever seen as many people coming out of a gig as ecstatically happy as after Gilbert O’ Sullivan,” says Rory O’Connor, “Almost 900 people at the all seated show enjoyed the story of his life, with stories and video footage.
Rory explains that Gilbert brought his wife and daughter to Sligo for the concert. The family stayed for a few days in the Clayton and were suitably impressed with all of the sights.
“They went to the beach and toured around and loved it here,” says Rory.
Musician Damien Dempsey and Stockton’s Wing shared the stage on Sunday evening making it as Rory puts it ‘a game of two halves.’
“It was a mixed crowd of 600 people, some favouring one act over the other but everyone enjoyed it,” says Rory.