Thurs 6th Nov
8:00pm - 10:00pm
Main Theatre
Keynote address: Carál Ní Chuilín
- Áire Cultύir, Ealaίon agus Fόillίochta (NI)
“I am deeply honoured to have been asked to deliver the keynote address at the opening of the 2014 Allingham Festival. Its theme of ‘Inspiring Creativity, Engaging Enterprise’ blends powerfully with my role in driving a strategic focus across Government in the north on the transformative power of creativity and the creative and cultural industries to grow the economy and to tackle disadvantage. “The creative industries and cultural sector across the island constitute strategic assets enabling us to compete and succeed on the world stage, while supporting the work of a wide range of social partners to make a real difference to people’s lives. The challenge is to stimulate more strategic linkages and partnerships across these sectors and with other sectors of the economy and society, in order to drive innovation and catalyse life-changing pathways delivering wider social and economic change.”
Guest panelist: Orlaith McBride
- Director, Arts Council (ROI)
You will be feeling energised and enthused by the previous ‘Inspire Creativity...’ event. We will then enter the second half of the evening entitled ‘...Engage Enterprise’. Following the official launch of the festival, our keynote speaker, Carál Ní Chuilín (Minister for Culture Arts and Leisure NI), will address an the audience and a select panel for this year's Allingham Lecture entitled “Inspiring Creativity, Engaging Enterprise”. Then the panel, including Orlaith McBride (Director, Arts Council), and the audience will have an opportunity to respond. The event will be chaired by Paul Hannigan (President of LYIT).
This event aims to stimulate discussion and debate around the possibilities of creative enterprise in Ballyshannon and the northwest. We live in a hub of diverse creativity and there are many small businesses and creative individuals generating high quality creative output in this area. However, unemployment remains much greater than national average, and in order to assist growth in the creative sector, events offering relevant knowledge content and appropriate networking opportunities are important.
The Minister’s keynote will focus on engaging industry with the creative and cultural industries as drivers of growth, jobs, prosperity and community development. Indeed we see the event as a possible opening of an agenda for discussion on creating the conditions for a local/regional collaborative project or start-up creative enterprises.
We’re hoping Ms McBride will outline the context of the role of the Arts Council and the recent strategic review of how it addresses its remit and the Allingham Festival would welcome exploration into the potential of the Creative Europe 2014-2020 funding programme to design and develop projects at a local, regional or national level. There would be a great deal of local interest if ‘The Creative State North West’ Report and its recommendations can be incorporated into the panel discussion too. Let’s see what happens. I’m sure it will be an extremely informative evening. The Allingham Festival is ideally positioned to encourage innovation, networking and development of creative industries locally. Perhaps this event could spark the beginning of something much bigger?
Guest panelist: Michael Tunney
Chief Executive Local Enterprise Office (LEO)
This event is open to all and free to attend. Please join us to get this year's festival off to a flyer!
Schedule
8:00pm:
Best of Show Design & Enterprise Exhibition by #designatmagee
8:15pm:
Festival Official Opening
8:30pm:
The Allingham Lecture: Inspire Creativity - Engage Enterprise - Minister For Arts NI, Carál Ní Chuilín.
Panel discussion chaired by Paul Hannigan.
9:15pm:
Panel: Orlaith McBride (Director, Arts Council), Enterprise Ireland, Neishaw Ali (SpinVFX)
10:00pm: Fin