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Sligo 400 Summer Festival a massive success

Sligo’s first Summer Festival, celebrating the 400th anniversary of Sligo’s charter, was a major success last weekend in the town centre. Blazing sunshine and big music acts brought out record numbers for the festival with attendances exceeding 15,000 over Friday and Saturday nights. The event also included a feast of family fun in O’Connell Street, several fun sporting events and live music in Sligo’s best loved pubs and nightspots.

Councilor Daniel Mc Garrigle, who organised the weekend on behalf of the Borough Council Sligo 400th committee, said “We now plan to develop this into an annual event. We started out with the idea of a summer festival as part of the 400th celebration as we felt that Sligo was lacking a really big flagship summer festival.

This weekend has shown that there is the talent in Sligo to put on a sizable event for the entire county to enjoy. There was a great mix in the festival audiences, with all ages and every section of Sligo and the surrounding counties represented. This was truly a festival for everyone.”

Councilor McGarrigle continued “I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the members of Sligo Summer Festival committee and the dozens of volunteers for their trojan work in making this festival an incredible success. I think that the event far outperformed everyone’s expectations and I believe this is down to the hard work put in by all over the past few months”.

The free festival, was funded by the investment provided by Sligo Borough Council, Failte Ireland and Sligo businesses. He acknowledged the substantial assistance of the Mayor, David Cawley, An Garda Siochana, Sligo Fire service, City Hall Officials, The Arts Office, Sligo Borough Council workers, Sligo 400th Committee, Full Moon Music Production, Sligo Tide Towns, Sligo Sub Aqua Club, The Hospice swim committee, the local media, and of course, the crowd of more than 15,000 who came out and enjoyed the festival over the weekend.

An event like this has an enormously positive effect on the local economy and shows that Festivals and events are a great investment for Sligo Borough Council. They play a substantial role in the development of tourism for the town. “A number of tourist over the weekend asked whether Sligo was always such a buzzing spot”. Sligo was indeed a “buzzing spot” last weekend and that was evident throughout the whole town where we believe people had a memorable weekend.

Daniel concluded “I have truly enjoyed working with everyone involved in the festival and I really appreciated their support and hard work in delivering each and every aspect of the festival. My hope is that we have awoken Sligo to what we can achieve if we all pull together. I for one am very happy to have been part of this wonderful event”.