This was originally posted Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Festivals

There are some people who think I make a whole load of money from putting on the DylanFest and the BeatlesFest.

The opposite is true.

All the pubs pay for is the late licences they get and for the acts inside their pubs.

I don’t charge them anything and have no other streams of income from the festivals.

Just to keep the record straight here are my costs from this year’s festivals all of which come out of my pocket.
Costs
€450 – 10,000 DylanFest / BeatlesFest flyers

€600 – Cost of bringing over Dylan playwright Peter Landecker from Canada

€250 – Cost of accommodation for Peter Landecker

€70 – Cost of People Carrier to Derry and back to bring Al Diesan & Pino to Mason’s

€80 – Cost two sets of posters for DylanFest (programme & Play)

€120 – Tickets for the play

€200 – Cost of bringing Tony Bramwell from Totnes in Devon to Moville

€100 – Cost of Accommodation for Tony Bramwell at Barron’s

€100 – Cost of taxi early morning from Moville to Belfast City Airport

€80 – Cost of two sets of posters for BeatlesFest

€150 – Cost of buying Tony Bramwell his meals and Guinness

€60 – Taxis to Derry for Radio Shows

€2,260 – Total

I lost a load of money on it as I have done all four years of the festivals.

So, why do I do it?

I can’t say that it is to put something back into the town as I’ve never made a penny in Moville.

Not Sure

I’m not sure really.

Maybe I just felt that it could be done and so I did it.

I don’t know.

Hobby

I suppose I enjoy it and it is a bit of a hobby.

Lots of hobbies cost money – but this one’s on the expensive side.

I keep hoping each year that my costs will be minimal.

However, that hasn’t happened so far.

Grant

Maybe I’ll see if I can get a grant.

After all, although the sum is expensive for my pocket it’s minimal as far as a grant is concerned.

A grant of €5000 – €10,000, which is low in grant terms, would give us a couple of great festivals.

In the Streets

It would enable us to put on acts in the street again.

That was abandoned as there weren’t enough pubs to pay for it.

In 2008 a lot of it ended up coming out of my pocket.

Not Much Needed

We don’t need that much.

If we had a grant of €5,000 that would be twice as much as I spent this year.

If we had a grant of €10,000 what festivals they would be.