The Heineken Green Energy Festival is now in its fourth year and has firmly established itself as one of the most exciting and eagerly anticipated events on the Irish music calendar.
While the festival offers consumers the unique opportunity to see top international acts in the beautiful surroundings of Dublin Castle, it also presents a range of top gigs in the Olympia Theatre and Temple Bar Music Centre as well as a host of live performances by young Irish bands in pub venues throughout the city centre.
This year's festival line-up speaks for itself and there's also the exciting Band Challenge, the biggest new-talent search in the country, which this year attracted a record number of entries from aspiring young bands - 400 in all.
The festival also has a much wider, tangible impact on Dublin's thriving tourism industry when one considers the number of visitors to venues, restaurants, pubs, clubs and hotels that are frequented by visitors to the festival over the May Bank Holiday Weekend, not to mention the additional business brought to the city's buses, trains and taxis.
Furthermore, where bands are lucky enough to get that much-sought-after record deal, this can have a positive ripple effect by generating employment for young promoters and managers, sound engineers, light-technicians, video production and editing companies, recording studios, music shops, equipment suppliers, photographers and designers. As director of the festival, my principal role is largely to work closely on behalf of Heineken with the festival organisers, agencies and music, and develop a festival which offers consumers a wide range of quality live music in a range of key venues throughout Dublin. To ensure a festival of this size passes off successfully, it is essential all these parties work closely together.
It is also important to educate the public about the variety and depth of what exactly the festival has to offer. This necessitates considerable prevent planning and publicity to raise the level of awareness among music-lovers not just in Ireland but also abroad. From a brand perspective, it is important that the festival runs smoothly and that all of the bands performing, whether in Dublin Castle or in the smaller pubs and venues throughout the city centre, are well looked after from the time of their arrival to the time they leave. It is also important to us that, whether watching Irish or international acts perform, people have a really good time at the festival and this reinforces Heineken's brand image through this strong association with live music in Ireland.
Heineken is proud and excited about the contribution it has made to the development of Irish music, a contribution reflected in our sponsorship of a range of high profile events and festivals, from the grass-roots right up to the highest level of the music industry. This involvement includes the Heineken Rollercoaster Tour, which offers young Irish music talent an invaluable opportunity to perform live in front of students of third-level institutions; the continuation of the popular Heineken Weekenders which bring a range of top international and Irish acts to key venues throughout Galway, Waterford, Dublin, Limerick and Cork, and the Heinken Hot Press Rock Awards, Ireland's most prestigious and successful music awards, which attracts the biggest names in Irish rock and pop.
It is a source of great pleasure to us that all the events which make up Heineken's extensive music programme have become firmly established on the Irish music calendar and we are delighted our support of the Irish music industry is widely valued by the industry and consumers alike.
