After all you’re my wonderwall!

Waterford last weekend was a heady mix of colour, sunshine, Bluegrass and crowds of people. The late summer weather brought people out of their homes and attracted many a day visitor from across the south east region, to the City and County, to see and experience, two most diverse of festivals.

The 22^nd International Bluegrass Festival, took place in the picturesque village of Dunmore East and has been around, ehmm, for a number for years. This niche celebration, helps to extend the tourist season for the village, by incorporating a significant festival, into the last weekend prior to the “schools going back!”

Blue skies, “warm” Atlantic waters and very busy beaches all added to the festival’s flavour. This in turn attracted families, by the hundreds, and such is the compact geometry of the village, that mum, dad and the bairns, really could find something for everyone over the weekend. There were very few tears and tantrums as the Bluegrass delivered in spades and our home-grown Olympian, Mr Thomas Barr, added to the colourful mix by making a special guest appearance.

In the City, we were once again treated to a riot of colour, as unloved walls, gable ends and derelict buildings ALL received the Waterford Walls treatment. For once the local Garda turned a blind eye to the graffiti artists, whose canvases were quite literally a blank brick or rough plastered wall.

The event, is now in its second year and has grown significantly since 2015, with around 40 murals being created this year. It is a form of street art that delivers huge impact and sparks wild debate around the suitability of the finished piece. It is this unadulterated pure expression of the mind, that makes Waterford Walls work.

In addition to the many Irish artists, we have seen talented people from all around the world, including Brazil, Mexico and Australia, come to Waterford to leave their mark on our streetscape. Their legacy will be left for at least twelve months for us to view, like, dislike, criticise, applaud and debate.

That is what art delivers for us, the ordinary Joe Soap, the non creative people of this world, who see a piece of art and say “I could do that!” But the fact is that we could not do better and it is the art we are looking that has stimulated our mind to actually think!

“All the roads you have to walk are winding...”

As you wander around the City over the next few weeks, take time to seek out and look at the art that Waterford Walls has delivered. I guarantee, that should you that pass the same piece again, you will see a completely different perspective. Each time you view the work of the artists, possibly gravitating towards your favourites, you will be stimulated to think that little bit differently, as you view them in a new context. That is what art delivers by the bucket load.

The Waterford Walls project is without doubt one of the events that we need to support with increased funding. Any increase in public funding does of course come with the caveat of transparency and accountability. But there can be no doubt that this project has longevity, the ability to grow in both size and popularity.

Waterford, last weekend, was a national news story, for ALL the right reasons. It is that type of publicity that we need to court and demand if we are to move the City forward. We have legacy issues with very poor political clout and it will take years to redress this imbalance.

In the meantime, we must focus on what we are good at and we must seek out the events and festivals that are worth their weight in gold and start backing these.

With 2017 just around the corner, our summer in the City and County should have a beginning, middle and an end. With lots of smaller “support events” taking place in between three cornerstone events of significant scale.

PS. Sceptical, I am NOT! Opinionated, YES! Passionate about Waterford – NEVER A DOUBT!

Are we getting Summerval(u)?

As we are now into the second week of August we are roughly halfway through the Summerval programme and I have to ask, “Has it started yet?”

Despite all the fanfare and pre-event promotion, many of the City businesses, a significant number of Waterford people and myself, do feel that it has been rather a damp squib, unlike the Spraoi fireworks on The Quay, a couple of weeks ago.

Dig deeper into the programming and you will see that many of our annual summertime events, attractions and festivals have been incorporated under the one umbrella and this of course is a good idea, if we are to compete with other “festival cities”. This in fact should have been done years ago and by building a strong promotional summer programme we make the whole region more attractive. However, as the majority of events were in existence prior to the Summerval banner being flown, they cannot be claimed as “new”!

Any event which receives some form of Council, therefore rate/tax payers’ subvention, should be listed under a “Waterford Festivals/Events” banner and co-promoted at every opportunity. The fallout from the Three Sisters bid has promised better interaction and closer ties with our neighbouring counties. But what about closer cross promotion from the, literally, dozens and dozens of year round festivals/events we all attend on an annual basis? Take time to count these, you’ll need more than two hands and feet to do this, and you will be mightily impressed with the levels of activities around this City and County.

So, the bigger question must be, have we received good value for money for the Summerval branding? Bear in mind that the budget for this, is in excess of circa €100,000 and if you add on the existing budgets from Summer in the City, Art Beat etc then you are looking at budgets in the region of circa €140,000. A very healthy budget indeed, when you do not have to create any new events – well at least very few new events!

Waterford Walls 2015

In addition, I have been told that the marketing, PR, event management etc and in fact all the committee work is being carried out free gratis and this should be applauded. (This of course continues the Waterford tradition of giving your precious free time for other causes.)

Thus, with no salaries, as such to pay, the whole €100k budget could be spent on new acts, new attractions, regional/national advertising campaigns, competitions, social media etc etc.

Alas, I fear that the promise that Summerval would bring thousands of extra visitors to the City and County has not materialised and in fact the whole idea needs to be closely looked at and scrutinised as it has clearly not captured the imagination of anyone.

I sat in the Council meeting when Summerval was fist muted and I know that the funding was ultimately approved by our 32 Councillors after extensive “In-Committee-Meetings.” Meetings where we, the public, our local press and media, do not get access to the minutes. It would be interesting to read those minutes and see just how forensically the business plan, budgets, cost benefits analysis etc were scrutinised by the Councillors who approved the awarding of a six figure grant!

Sadly, we will never know. But reading between the lines I would imagine that many Councillors are now asking just what value for money this exercise has delivered?

The idea of listing our many attractions/events/festivals under one corporate “Waterford’s Just Better” banner is the right way to go. But to have allocated so much money to this project, at the detriment to others, is wrong.

Yes, we needed a “Summer Festival” but the work done on the likes of Summer In The City, Art Beat etc was a foundation stone to expand on. Allocating even a fraction of the €100,000 to develop these programmes would have been, in my opinion, money better spent. There has sadly been a lack of engagement, very poor PR, and the result is no significant increase in footfall. In addition as the largest donator/sponsor Waterford Council’s logo is conspicuous by its absence from posters around the City.

Summer value – we have yet to be convinced!

How ithers see us!

Chocolate Mannequin Pis - what bit would you bite first?

Like it or not we do so many things in our day to day lives through our eyes.

We pick our partners on their looks. The first thing that attracts us to the opposite sex is the look of said possible suitor. All other traits such as personality, sense of humour etc come later. If we like what we are looking at then the chances are we will pursue, chase and ultimately get together. And when you look at the animal kingdom that is why so much effort is made in courtship that so often involves colour, dance, display etc as it is the eyes that do most of the initial work.

Trying too hard?

We choose holidays based on the pictures in brochures or based on pictures we have researched on the internet. I have no doubt that many readers now use the internet to actually look at, in real-time, holiday destinations. We also look at pictures posted by other holiday makers on discussion pages and holiday review sites.

Our food tastes so much better if we like the look of what we are about to eat. That is why so many top chefs spend so much time picking the right ingredients that not only tastes good but will look good on your plate. You only have to look at the plethora of TV chef programmes and look at the time spent on arranging the produce on the plate prior to serving. In fact we have now gone one stage further and we are seeing dishes being served on slate beds, wooden boards and all manner of items that are not our traditional china plate. Going to such great lengths on the presentation are ways to enhance our experiences and to make sure that we come back time and time again.

Should our City be treated any differently? I would argue No!

It has worried me and many others for quite some time now that the entrances to our wonderful City have been a very poor reflection on what our City has to offer. But like it or not the entrances to the City are in many ways our shop window to the City. And like a retail outlet that shop window must be dressed properly and appropriately to give people the right first impression of what type of City they are entering, what the City might have to offer and will the City come up to their expectations!

As it stands I do not believe that we have it right.

If you are driving from Dublin, and assuming that you do not get mixed up with the poor signage and redirected across the toll bridge, then you are presented with a quite foreboding drive down to the train station. The vista is not welcoming and in fact rather industrial. That concrete wall creates a claustrophobic impression and it is somewhere you feel that you must drive passed quickly. This wall is ripe for inclusion as part of the Waterford Walls project and should be a key focus for 2016. Likewise coming in from the Wexford side is also rather industrial and depressing.

But your spirits could be lifted when you see the bridge. But alas this is not festooned with flags, it is not adorned with wonderful floral displays, it is not lit correctly and so on. You do not have to look too far to see just how impressive a well dressed bridge looks - New Ross for example.

Then coming down through the Dunmore Road is like navigating a Himalayan mountain pass. All sorts of different patchwork surfaces, full of big lumps and large bumps and it is never ending.

No matter what spin you put on it we have NOT dressed our shop window correctly and I often wonder just how others see us.

“O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us, To see oursels as ithers see us!” Robert Burns.