SOME PEOPLE will travel any distance for a good session but the organisers of Sligo Live made it a bit easier for music fans at the weekend, using the internet to bring the festival into living rooms around the globe.
More than 36,000 people gathered in Sligo for the five-day festival but the audience also included thousands of online viewers from such places as the United States, Canada, Pakistan, Australia and Russia.
Sessions from some of Sligo’s best-known pubs, such as Hargadons, Shoot the Crows, the Rendezvous and Fiddler’s Creek, were beamed around the world in what the festival producers described as a ground-breaking development for music lovers.
“We brought the traditional music session beyond the four walls of the pub and allowed people in different time zones around the world to tune in live,” said Shane Mitchell of Dervish, co- producer of Sligo Live.
“We got a great response with people e-mailing us with comments and requests from places like the Shetland Islands and Pakistan, some of them Irish people who were homesick. Maybe in the wake of the Celtic Tiger we showed that this country still has a soul.”
This year’s festival, which continued throughout the bank holiday weekend, featured more than 80 events and generated an estimated €4.5 million for the local economy.
Headline acts included Martha Wainwright, Imelda May, Josh Ritter, The Saw Doctors, Frankie Gavin and comedian PJ Gallagher, while the programme also included the Fiddler of Dooney competition, the world air fiddle championships, street entertainment and an open-air market along the banks of the Garavogue.
Organised by a team of 100 volunteers, 80 per cent of the programme events were free.
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