Ravelóid unravels: the Irish language festival didn’t sell enough tickets

The Ravelóid will not be televised, nor happen in a field in north Dublin. Every year at least one music festival hits the skids, but May is quite early for that to be happening already. Ravelóid, the high-profile Irish language music festival which was part of the 1916 commemoration programme has been “postponed”.

Scheduled to take place over June 10th and 11th, in recent days things looked bad for Ravelóid, with a social media push explicitly calling for people to buy tickets for the event to happen. Once the organisers of an event are making vaguely pleading videos, you know the jig is up. “Production factors” have been cited with regards to the festival’s cancellation, but the reality is, it didn’t sell enough tickets, and production costs soared.

I spoke to organiser Tomaí Ó Conghaile earlier, who was honest about the difficulties the festival faced. “Last March the committee was given an estimate of what the festival was going to cost,” Ó Conghaile said, saying he wasn’t happy to name the event management company the festival was working with, “We based the whole planning on the festival around those costings,” he said. The problems for Ravelóid began when the initial location, Newbridge House in Donabate in north Dublin became unavailable due to what Ó Conghaile described as “construction work being done”. The festival then had to relocate to Ardgillen Castle in Balbriggan. “The costs on security were stepped up,” Ó Conghaile explained. With the initial costs no longer realistic, a reevaluation of costs in March saw them soar to €600,000 in order make the festival happen. Sales of the 5,000 capacity event also stagnated at 1,600 tickets sold, according to Ó Conghaile. People who bought tickets will receive refunds via the ticketing company Eventbrite. Ó Conghaile said, “the concept is still alive, the vision for an Irish language music festival is still alive,” but money has already been lost on posters and leaflets being printed, billboard advertising and deposits for some of the bands on the lineup. “Maybe the first year was over ambitious, but we still believe the concept is a very valid one,” ÓConghaile said, “we think we can do it again.”

But the reality is, if the festival couldn’t happen in 2016, with all of the marketing buzz around the commemorations for the centenary year, the goodwill towards all things Irish and patriotism, it is doubtful that it can be successful a year later when that vibe has died down, when the marketing surrounding that has depleted, and when the brand has already failed once before.

Returning to the department cap in hand might be slightly problematic too, as €17,500 (a pittance in large scale festival terms, but a chunk of change none the less) was already allocated. “A grant of €35,000 was allocated by the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht to Conradh na Gaeilge towards the cost of the Ravelóid festival as part of the Ireland 2016 Centenary Programme,” a spokesperson for the department told me, “The department met with Conradh na Gaeilge in recent weeks to discuss the possibility of providing additional grant aid for the project. Discussions in this regard were ongoing. The department notes that the event has now been postponed due to production issues as set out in the statement issued today by Conradh na Gaeilge. The department will maintain contact with the Conradh in this regard.”

Ravelóid received half of that funding, €17,500. A spokesperson for Conradh na Gaeilge said that amount was paid before Christmas, and that the rest was to be paid after the festival. Ravelóid also benefited from partnerships with RTÉE 2fm, which translated as free and high profile advertising spots.

Hanging a festival’s viability on this scale on ticket sales is a risky strategy. But like many festivals that don’t work out as planned, Ravelóid didn’t have a clear vision of what it was, angling for both the family and youth market.

The Irish language hook is nice, but does the festival market demand it? The fact that the festival offered camping was also something of an anomaly, given that Dublin festivals generally hook themselves on the ease and benefits of not having to stay overnight in a tent in a field, with Forbidden Fruit and Longitude offering the convenience of being set in an urban area, so a day’s partying can finish in your own bed and shower.

From a marketing point of view, there was little edge to Ravelóid. A ticket in a similar ballpark at Longitude in Marlay Park offers music fans the chance to see some of the best and biggest acts in the world; Kendrick Lamar, The National, Major Lazer, Jamie xx, and so on. Ravelóid concentrated on solid Irish acts; Delorentos, The Riptide Movement, Ham Sandwich and Heathers. The smattering of other Irish acts, appealed to older audiences; Kíla, Mundy and Hothouse Flowers, with others aimed at a much younger teenage market such as Seo Linn. For €119, a fan can get three days at Forbidden Fruit in Kilmainham featuring Dizzee Rascal, Tame Impala, Skepta, Underworld, Jungle, and more. At Ravelóid’s pricing, their lineup needed to comprise more than local acts which were trying to be too many things to too many demographics.

Less experienced organisers often say they don’t have the sway of bigger promoters, but there are plenty of independent festivals that thrive once they figure out who and what their market is. Festival-goers are a savvy bunch who have growing expectations about what a festival should be, and the baseline of music in a field isn’t enough any more. The organisers of Ravelóid should be applauded for giving it a shot, but festival planning seems to attract a particular brand of naivety amongst first-time organisers. Organising a festival is fun on paper, but it’s a hugely competitive market, a highly stressful and expensive undertaking, and has a customer base that has countless options and is lured in all directions by several world class festivals in an Irish summer alone.

“Everybody who’s involved in it really believed in it,” Ó Conghaile said, which I’m sure is true. But alas, Ravelóid has become yet another victim of a crowded, competitive market, that often punishes first timers, and it shows again that a fair to middling idea and a lot of belief are a lot further down the list of requirements in making an outdoor music festival a success than many people think.