Cloughtoberfest ran for the first time in 2011, and it was AMAZING! It brought together the finest Irish Gypsy Jazz bands with top performers from all over Europe for 3 days of knockout concerts, music masterclasses and awe-inspiring jam sessions. It was all flavoured with a great selection of Irish Craft Beer, highlighting independent micro-breweries from 6 counties.... and boy, were they good.
The festival was run by Silverwood Ireland, which is really (at the moment) a one-woman show managed by me (Lil). I wanted to run the festival for a few different reasons;
I've loved Django Reinhardt and Gypsy Jazz all my life... my uncle was a fan and guitarist... and wanted to share that infectious, upbeat, happy happy music at a time when we all really need it.
I wanted to promote our amazing Irish gypsy bands to a wider audience. We have some of the finest musicians in the genre here, yet they remain largely unknown. There's a big tradition of gypsy festivals all over Europe, and lots of Irish players travel to them. I reckoned it was time to bring Europe to us!
I wanted to bring life and much-needed tourism to the beautiful area where I live.... the Irish Midlands, another overlooked treasure.
As a brand-new event, so therefore an unknown quantity, it was impossible to secure funding. Well, the only way to show how good it could be was to go ahead and do it, so we went ahead and held a great event with 3 days of concerts, workshops and sessions. The locals fell in love with gypsy jazz, and our visitors (from all over Europe) fell in love with Co. Tipperary... result! I paid for everything myself, and almost made my money back, so I'm delighted I took the risk.
All in all, a success story, and now we're being offered funding to do it all again, bigger and better, in 2012. The only setback is that I have to pay for everything up front first.... and this year's festival has left me stoney broke! This is where you come in......
Just €5000.00 will cover all the festival needs to get started and secure that funding. It will be enough for us to book our core performers, and have a concrete programme for our funding applications. For a 4-day programme of concerts and masterclasses, free lunchtime concerts, local artisan beer and food and general good times for around a thousand people, that's not a lot! But having that to begin with will make the difference between going ahead... or not.
So please, make a donation, tell all your friends to do the same, and join us for the happiest event of the year. THANK YOU! :)
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