Galway Arts Festival's artistic director Paul Fahy has "warmly welcomed" plans for a new rival arts event in the city this summer.
The alternative event, Project 06/Togra 06, has selected July 18th to 29th for its programme - in direct competition with the 2006 Galway Arts Festival (GAF) programme from July 17th to 30th.
Former GAF director and current Saw Doctors' manager, Ollie Jennings, one of the organisers of the new event, told The Irish Times that it was a one-year project which had been discussed at a recent meeting hosted by members of the city's arts community in the Town Hall Theatre.
The initiative is "not a fringe event", and aims to "reignite the city with the feeling that the arts are truly our own", according to the group.
In an unsigned press statement Project 06 said last week that it wanted to bring back a sense of vibrancy to Galway's streets by engaging the public in open-air events.
It hoped to "open a dialogue with the GAF and influence its future direction", and the statement said its programme would include groups and types of perform- ances which had been absent from the GAF in recent years.
"The idea for the new festival has come from a group of locally based artists and promoters who feel that the GAF would benefit from more interaction with local artists," it said.
"The festival has made great strides in recent years attracting headline international shows, but Project 06 believes that the spirit of the festival and the atmosphere of the streets, in particular, could benefit significantly by more engagement with local arts groups."
"This one-year-only project hopes to demonstrate in a positive and pro-active way that this can be achieved," it said.
