Galway festival blossoms as organiser stays true to roots

The Galway Arts Festival, due to start on Monday, takes place over 14 days, includes 185 performances in 28 venues around the city, 570 performers and audiences of up to 100,000, writes Colm Ward

There is one man in Galway not complaining about the recent appalling weather. Mr Fergal McGrath is manager of the Galway Arts Festival and believes that overcast weather means greater ticket sales. Next week, however, he is hoping the sun will appear so that he can sell more T-shirts in this, his final year at the helm of the festival.

The weather theory seems to be holding out. Just over a week after the box office opened, a third of the sales target had been reached. This compares with 20 per cent at the same time last year, so Mr McGrath is "cautiously optimistic" that the festival will reach its target of more than €450,000 in ticket sales. Not bad, especially considering that tourism in the Republic, and particularly in the west, is experiencing one of its worst years in memory.

Mr McGrath attributes the early success to the great local support the festival enjoys, both in Galway and elsewhere in Ireland. He estimates that three-quarters of ticket sales come from the Republic and that three-quarters of those come from Galway people.

"It's a very strong local base. It's this bedrock of support that carries us through years when the visitors might be down," he believes.

The festival, due to start on Monday, is a serious logistical undertaking. It takes place over 14 days, involves 185 performances in 28 venues around the city, 570 performers and audiences of up to 100,000. Turnover for this year is €1.3 million.

The money to run the festival comes from three sources:

sponsorship, which accounts for 34 per cent;

grants, which account for 28 per cent;

box office takings, which account for the remaining 38 per cent.

Galway businesses have been generous in their support for the festival. The "local friends" initiative allows local businesses to contribute sums of between €150 and €1,270. This has raised almost €80,000. This support, Mr McGrath believes, comes about because of the recognition that the Arts Festival is a huge boost for business in Galway.

"If we're creating this honey pot for tourism, then we're equally going to reap the reward of extra support from local business," he says.

Larger corporate sponsors also play a very important role. According to Mr McGrath, it has become a deliberate policy to seek out brand leaders as sponsors. This has become easier, he believes, as the brand that is the Galway Arts Festival has become more valuable.

"We see Galway Arts Festival as a valuable brand and we want to associate with other leading brands, and we're attracting both income and this kind of valuable two-way brand association," he says.

Mr McGrath recognises the importance of the brand and has deliberately pursued a policy of maintaining control of it. As a result, he has refused all offers to buy the title sponsorship, despite being offered "significant sums".

"We're a multi-sponsor event. We have never ever sold the title sponsorship to a single sponsor and we've done that because it has always belonged to the people of Galway," he says. For this reason, the sponsors' branding is "more stylish than dominant. It's there, it's present, but it's reasonably subtle and it's very acceptable."

A good relationship with sponsors has seen some of their good business practices rubbing off on the festival organisation. A few years ago, a financial director was appointed, following a Nortel-sponsored audit that suggested it might be beneficial.

An arts festival, of course, is not a conventional business and Mr McGrath recognises that there is a limit to the extent to which the two can be combined. He must balance the imperative to cover costs with the artistic commitment to innovation and experimentation, which may not always be profitable.

He believes that "there are marketing principles that apply in the business world that have to be very sensitive in their application to the arts world".

"There are a lot of things that we can learn from the business world. There are principles that would make us successful but they have to be adapted and adopted and very sensitively implemented," he says.

He takes what he describes as "an integrated approach" to the marketing of the events. "I have to apply as many of the basic sales and marketing strategies as I can. So we have to be very sophisticated in the direct marketing, we have to be very sophisticated in the Web marketing, we have to have a fully computerised, well-staffed box office with easy-to-remember phone lines and credit card booking facilities," he explains.

Before he took up his present job 10 years ago, Mr McGrath was involved with a subsidiary of Fyffes that sold potted plants. During that time, he worked with some of the large chain stores and he believes that the "extraordinarily innovative approach" to marketing that he came across then stands him in good stead. It is this "openness to innovation in terms of sales and marketing strategies", he believes, that has led to the Galway festival becoming the largest multidisciplinary arts festival in the Republic.

This spirit of innovation led to it becoming the first festival in the country to set up a website in the early 1990s.

An online booking facility was added two years ago. This has proved successful, with online bookings growing from 7 per cent in the first year, to 12 per cent last year. They are currently running at 25 per cent this year.

With growing sophistication came some concern that the festival was losing touch with its local roots.

A survey conducted soon after the introduction of credit card booking facilities in 1994 showed some negative reaction locally, as people felt that the festival was getting too slick and out of the reach of many.

To counteract this, the phrase "you don't have to have a credit card to book" has been included on all brochures since and a limited number of tickets are reserved for those who are unable, or unwilling, to buy over the internet or by credit card.

Mr McGrath recognises the importance of maintaining strong roots. The success of the Galway festival, he believes, is rooted in the support of local people and businesses.

He quotes from a speech given by Father Harry Bohan to festival organisers a few years ago: "The day you cut your roots is the day you die."