Additional reporting by Niall O'Sullivan
ORGANISERS of London’s official St Patrick’s Day celebrations have swapped Ireland’s chart-toppers for emerging local talent and child-friendly activities in the annual festival line-up.
Next month’s free event will now boast comedy, culture and food tents among its highlights as it moves away from its ‘music festival feel’ to cater for families enjoying the day.
And as the celebrations kick off in Trafalgar Square on Sunday, March 17 up to 100,000 revellers who regularly turn out for the popular St Pat’s party will find a revamped main stage line-up, boasting local bands and traditional musicians amidst dance acts and short film screenings.
While past years have seen the likes of Róisín Murphy, Damien Dempsey, Imelda May and the Hothouse Flowers headlining the main stage in Trafalgar Square, the 2013 line-up – released this week - will showcase the London rock group Yngve & The Innocent and the Crossharbour trad band, while RTE’s own Late Late Show band and singer Brian Kennedy will be found in the headline slot.
The decision to move away from the usual concert format was made by the London St Patrick’s Day Festival Committee – a group of Irish community leaders who advise the GLA on the annual event.
Committee Chairperson Catherina Casey, who is General Manager at Hammersmith’s Irish Cultural Centre, says the move is one which will ‘show Ireland in its best light’.
“We felt that over the past few years the Festival was not very family-friendly,” she said. “It was more like a music festival. I have children myself and they always found that it got quite raucous. So where it is a middle-of-the-day event, which children need to be a part of, because it is an Irish family day, we needed to look at that side of it.”
She added: “We have done surveys and went to a number of the heads of various organisations. We had a lot of independent feedback and the biggest criticism we were getting was that there had been no change or evolution to the festival.
“Many felt, unfortunately, half-way through the day, people, having drank a little bit too much, were falling into the fountains and then you had security guards chasing people around. That is not the image that we want to give out about Ireland.”
The total cost for the 2013 event - the flagship free St Patrick’s Day celebration in London – is £150,000, of which London Mayor Boris Johnson’s office contributes £100,000 via festival producers the Greater London Authority.
The remaining money will come from sponsors, which includes O2 and the Irish food board Bord Bia for 2013.
Annually that sum covers the costs of a colourful parade, including floats from Irish county and community associations across London, which runs from Piccadilly to Whitehall on the day, and the festival in Trafalgar Square - a six-hour event which kicks off at noon.
The festival was instated by former London Mayor Ken Livingstone in 2002 and has been financially supported by the GLA ever since.
It is now a highlight of the London calendar for Irish and non-Irish communities alike.
In a bid to bring a more family friendly vibe to the day, the Committee have added a number of new cultural elements to the festival, including a comedy tent hosted by the London Irish Comedy Festival and produced by Maria Schweppe in partnership with the London Irish Centre.
There, from 2-6pm, the likes of Aisling Bea, Maeve Higgins and Colm O'Regan will showcase their funniest child-friendly routines.
Having the focus on such new additions took away the possibility of hosting big headline acts on the main stage, according to the Committee.
“We could still have done that but it would not have made sense,” Ms Casey explained.
“You either do one or the other in that size of space. You could not run the same kind of thing [concert] in Trafalgar Square as in the years before because you could not possibly then have a comedy tent. Nobody would be able to hear anything, it just would not work.”
Elsewhere Irish cinema will also feature in Trafalgar Square for the first time, boasting film shorts and animation screenings in a 22-seat Vintage Mobile Cinema.
This week the GLA confirmed the full line-up for the day, stating: “As well as the main stage, new elements are being introduced, after the St Patrick's Day advisory forum undertook a public consultation looking at how to improve the celebrations.”
In less than a month their new festival will go on show to more than 100,000 people who will turn out in their greens to celebrate Ireland’s national day.
The St Patrick’s Day Festival Committee will be keen to gain their feedback.
“We are going to provide people with a day that they can be proud of,” Ms Casey said. “We want to make sure that everything we do there gives people a sense of pride, whether that is pride in your nationality or your ethnicity or your city.”
She added: “This is our first year doing it, changing the structure. We will deliver it and hope that we take all that is successful about it and grow it again for next year.
“If I turned around and said that there are no potential risks involved, I would be a very arrogant person. I do not know if we can judge it only on numbers, the measure will be the feedback that we receive afterwards. We will need to do a big post-event survey.”
Tell us your thoughts on the new festival format – send us a letter, contact 02089004329 or email fionaaudley@http://http://irishpost.co.uk
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Costs
The London St Patrick’s Day Festival 2013 will cost £150,000 to produce.
It will be met by £100,000 in GLA funding and £50,000 from festival sponsors which include O2 and Bord Bia.
The breakdown includes:
£85,000 on production – including stage, screens, marquees, sound, lighting, fencing, barriers, production crew, stewarding, first aid, catering for artists, dressing rooms and vehicles.
£25,500 for the entertainment budget, including main stage, film and comedy.
£20,000 to cover the parade costs.
The overall budget also includes promotional activity, cleaning and dressing Trafalgar Square.
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