Maiden City Festival bows out for 2006

Tony Curran reports:

Please note the attached link for immediate posting to the BIB.

We have also received through Frank Galligan, who has all our sympathy, the following press release

The organisers of the Maiden City Festival have decided to bring the curtain down on the Festival for 2006. Urgent attention needs to be addressed towards a clear and agreed framework for funding that removes the eleventh-hour funding crisis that has defeated and demoralised the Festival team this year. This requires conclusive attention in the autumn if there is to be a Maiden City Festival in 2007 and beyond. A few events will be held in 2006 during the week before the 12th August but not as Maiden City Festival activity.

David Hoey, who works with the Festival, says:

'We have spent the past three to four months trying to secure funding for 2006. Our three-year forward plans contained the most exciting, innovative ideas that stretched the Festival into new and imaginative fields without a huge amount of additional cost over that period. At the outset we were hugely optimistic about the future of the Maiden City Festival, now matched by our enormous disappointment at having to call it a day for 2006.

'The Maiden City Festival has fallen foul of petty bureaucracy and technocratic bun-fighting between, and internal to, agencies and government departments. In the end, three to four months of being told how we had provided more than enough information and how the Festival must happen, has still left us with three weeks to organise the Festival without funding security for the event. The Festival is about building bridges, and all we could see in the future was a battle that was not of our choosing, in which we were only a third party caught in the cross-fire. We are not prepared to take the risk of proceeding with a Festival simply to do "something" and end up with a patched-up programme that weakens the Festival brand.

'Any resolution on Festival funding should be completed by the autumn to have any hope of reviving and relaunching a renewed and reinvigorated Maiden City Festival in 2007. Without a clear and defined framework for funding, flexible enough to accommodate the various approaches to Festival organisation, we simply do not see a way forward for future years.'

William Moore, Festival Coordinator, adds: 'This year there will be a few events organised in the run-up to 12th August. These are events that are largely self-financing or where we have had to secure a long-term booking. We would hope that these will be supported even without a Maiden City Festival.

'It is with huge regret that we have had to put a brake on the Maiden City Festival, after eight years of working hard to build something positive in Londonderry. We had managed to create a unique experience in the summer months, a Festival which provided something for everyone, that brought all communities together, that started the work of building improved community relations in the City.

'The Maiden City Festival provided the backdrop to a broadly peaceful couple of months here in the City. There was more work to do, but that may now be for others to complete.

'For 2006, we would sincerely thank both Derry City Council, the Department of Foreign Affairs (RoI), Board Members of the Ulster Scots Agency, and all those individuals who gave us unqualified support in funding and in the battle to conclude our funding applications.

'We would like to thank all those who have worked with the Maiden City Festival over the years. There really are too many to mention, but particular thanks to the Playhouse, the Verbal Arts Centre, Frank Galligan, Dean William Morton and St Columb's Cathedral, Bready Ulster Scots, City Tours and Martin McCrossan, the Foyleside shopping centre, the Irish Peace Institute, the Context Gallery, Friends of Prehen House, Foyle Search and Rescue, Radio Foyle, Q102, all the newspapers in the north-west especially the Sentinel, the Journal, and the News, the print and broadcast media based in Londonderry, and the many, many other individuals and groups who freely gave of their time, commitment, and enthusiasm for our Festival week. We’d like to sincerely thank all the musicians, writers, singers, and participants from here in the City, in Northern Ireland, from the rest of Ireland, from the rest of the United Kingdom and from all around the world, who made the Festival such a success.

'All that remains for us to do, on behalf of the Apprentice Boys of Derry Maiden City Festival Committee, is to thank everyone for the opportunity to contribute positively to the life and the future of the City of Londonderry, to the town we all love. We sincerely hope that all our work will not be wasted and that the Maiden City Festival is only leaving the stage for an interval and that 2006 is not the final curtain.'

For further contact ring David Hoey on 077 8590 6966 or William Moore on 028 7134 9250