THE Dublin Theatre Festival will not have a named sponsor this year. Irish Life bowed out last year after a generous five year stint, which included three years of rolling funding.

All good things come to an end, to employ a moron's cliche and no other company packing that level of financial punch has wanted the Dublin Theatre Festival sponsor's mantle, despite feverish efforts on the part of Festival Director, Tony O Dalaigh, and his staff.

There will, however, be a festival and the number of "multiple" sponsors is edging upwards. General Manager, Fergus D. Linehan, can't say yet if there will be a large shortfall in funding or not. The lack of a big name with a big cheque has halted plans to have a special European focus this year, to coincide with Ireland's presidency of the EU. But Linehan is convinced that this year's October festival will be a particularly exciting one - it will also be, he says, the biggest one in recent years. Still keeping details under his hat, he resorts a lot to one adjective: "There will be a very big ballet (a French Cinderella), two big shows in the Gaiety, a big show in the Olympia, an on site big show somewhere else."

It is wonderful news that the Dublin Theatre Festival Fringe received £10,000 in funding this year from the Arts Council. With sponsorship, this will dwarf last year's budget of not much more than £5,000, so if you have a sufficiently fringey theatrical event you'd like to include, ring 01-8723500.