New festival on cards for Midlands?

A new flagship festival could be on the way for the Midlands in the future, it's emerged, in a bid to boost visitor numbers to Ireland's Hidden Heartlands.

Fáilte Ireland has issued tenders in recent days looking for a provider to conduct a feasibility study to “assess the potential to develop a high tourism impact festival that will motivate visitors to travel to Ireland's Hidden Heartlands”.

The study will examine all all aspects of staging a major festival in the region and the likely impact on visitor numbers, both domestic and international.
Speaking about the move, Paddy Matthews, Head of Operations of Ireland’s Hidden Heartlands said: "We have seen that festivals motivate over 200,000 overseas visitors to come to Ireland and contribute €108m to the economy every year. New research into Fáilte Ireland funded festivals shows that almost 60% of overseas visitors attend festivals outside of Dublin.

"However, we don’t have what is regarded as a high impact international festival in Ireland’s Hidden Heartlands. We are carrying out this study to explore the feasibility of developing one for the region. If we did, it would be transformative”.

The plan to develop a new festival in the Midlands region has been welcomed by Roscommon Deputy, Denis Naughten.
Fáilte Ireland’s Plan is to develop a new festival of scale and international standing that has the potential to motivate 300,000 visitors to Ireland’s Hidden Heartlands at off-peak times of the year, generating an economic impact across our region, he said.

“This is a significant boost for the developing tourism sector within Ireland’s Hidden Heartlands region and provides us with funding to attract foreign visitors to our local area by highlighting what we have to offer,” stated Denis Naughten.
 The tender deadline is July 1 next.

Ireland’s Hidden Heartlands incorporates the counties of Longford, Roscommon, Cavan, Westmeath, Tipperary, Leitrim, Galway, Clare and Offaly.