Festival aiming for high standards and happy audiences

“ALL good art should be accessible and have an air of popularity without any bar of quality being lowered,” says Galway Arts Festival’s Artistic Director, Paul Fahy, explaining his approach to programming this annual event – the biggest of its kind in Ireland. His might sound like one of the most enjoyable jobs in Ireland and as he presents his third festival, Paul certainly isn’t complaining.“I’m more excited about it now than I was when I went into it. Every day is a big challenge to make it work and to produce it. It involves negotiation, and wheeling and dealing with companies who might be used to getting four or five times the money that we can give them. So it’s about presenting Galway in a way that will make them want to come. The festival gets about €560,000 from the Arts Council, but the event costs about €2 million to run and our percentage of funding is lower than lots of other festivals.”Paul, who is from Ballybrit, has been a familiar face on the arts scene in Galway city and county for many years. In his younger days, he was a regular performer in the annual Macnas parade, while he also worked in various capacities at Galway Arts Centre. During his time there, programmed and produced the Cúirt International Festival of Literature in 1998 and 1999 and was one of the visual arts curator team for the Centre from 1990 -1999. He was the Consultant Programme Director with Kilkenny Arts Festival from 1999–2003. Now, in his artistic role with the festival, he is building on the work done by his predecessors and putting his own stamp on the events. So there have been some noticeable shifts since he took the helm..............