SUSAN KIRBY: I LIVE IN Smithfield and either walk or cycle to our offices in Earlsfort Terrace. We're here all year round and mostly the day begins at 9am, though I often work from home in the morning first, checking e-mails when it's quiet and there are no interruptions.
As we get closer to March, the mornings start earlier and earlier to fit in all the meetings. By festival time we’re working from 6am till after midnight. I have a lot of team meetings. We have production, marketing, programming and finance teams, and most mornings I’ll have to catch up with them. It’s a mix of creative activities and number crunching, but I like that diversity. I like finding the right balance.
Then there are meetings with external partners. This morning I’ve to meet Dublin Tourism and Fáilte Ireland to talk about tourism in Dublin.
We have a core staff of five all year round, rising to about
25 in February. We also have to manage a team of up to 300 volunteers at festival time. People are so generous with their time and the atmosphere among them is always terrific. A lot are foreign students living here who love the opportunity to get involved.
Lunch is at the desk or eating a sandwich in a meeting. In the afternoon I might be dealing with the production teams. We work with 10 street theatre companies around the country. The way we look at it, it’s a three kilometre-long live show we are producing.
This year’s parade theme is Extraordinary World. We want to present a contemporary view of Ireland while still maintaining our strong traditional roots.
As part of that we are bringing back the Big Céilí. It was dropped last year and a lot of people told us they missed it. The festival includes the Sky Fest and Big Day Out as well, but the parade is the figurehead event and people love the large-scale work that gives it such a wow factor. Last year 675,000 people lined the streets to see it. Of course, it helped that it was sunny.
Most days I try to get out by 7pm, head to the gym and then home for dinner. After that I log on again and get a couple more hours done.
I’m not a big fan of long hours normally because I don’t think it’s necessarily productive, but at the end of the day this is a massive live event with a deadline, so if something has to be done, it has to be done.
By the time it’s all over we have hit a wall and are exhausted. Managing that is very important so that people don’t become demoralised. It’s important, because you’re straight into organising the next one.
Susan Kirby is chief executive of the St Patrick’s Festival
* In conversation with Sandra O’Connell