THERE is a need for a new festival in early autumn in Limerick to showcase the region.
That’s according to Fran O’Donnell, Managing Director with events management company Futureama Productions.
He feels that there is a void in the calendar for a festival similar to that of St Patrick’s Day and Riverfest.
Mr O’Donnell said: “We’re very lucky in that we have St Patrick’s Day, the band parade, and after that the Riverfest in May. We probably need something in August/September.
“You have to remember that Limerick traditionally goes to Kilkee or the Canaries and hopefully if we can capture some of those and bring in new people. If we’re putting these on they have to have an economic impact. It’s not let’s throw a parade just for the sake of throwing a parade. We want to celebrate stuff, celebrate that it has an impact in the right areas, and with events like that I think we’re going to grow.
He added that Limerick is a region of massive economic potential but that such a reputation hasn’t been marketed, although the recruitment of international sponsorship is sending out the right message.
“I’m very proud of being a Limerick man and I’ve always been very much aware that Limerick is a fantastic city but sometimes we don’t tell enough people that it is. When we stage a successful event we should also blow our trumpets a small bit as well and let others know about it outside the city.
“When you put it on and they come out and enjoy it, they’re actually saying ‘I want to come to Limerick’. A lot of people have come here and actually stayed here and settled in Limerick. There’s a lot to do really behind it all and it really can surprise you what it actually has.
“The key, of course, is sponsorship. We have brought on a number of companies over the years, like Analog, Stryker and Coors Light, and they’re vital. We’re very much appreciative of local sponsorship, but you need to get in the bigger boys so that you can see there’s an effect to that.
“It has gone up four or five steps and international products that have budgets like that make that possible because they don’t alone give you funding to do something, they also raise promotion of something. Coors Light is everywhere all around the country so come to Limerick.
“That’s the message we want: come to Limerick. It’s good. It’s happening.”
Mr O’Donnell’s company Futureama Productions came to prominence in May 2006 when they organised the big screen on O’Connell Street for the Heineken Cup final between Munster and Biarritz.
One of the iconic images of the match was the screenshot of a packed Limerick being beamed to the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, and the link came courtesy of Futureama, something that is a source of great pride to Mr O’Donnell.
“What a lot of people don’t know is that we had no link into Cardiff that morning because I had organised a link and Sky News took away the link because they needed it over sport.
“It was down to our friend in RTE just by sheer chance. RTE were feeding it to Sky Sports so they took the link and we re-established the link into Cardiff. It was an Irish producer that was on and he took the shot and put it in.
“It was very emotional because I think Paul O’Connell tipped Stringer and said ‘that’s Limerick, we can’t go home without it’ so the emotion was certainly there. You could feel it and when the shot went up there was a cheer and anyone would tell you in Cardiff as well that it went right around the whole stadium. The crowd were the extra man that day so from there it really took off.
“We really came to the fore with the big screen for Munster which seems a long time ago now but when we achieved that shot going into Cardiff, that really started to put Futureama on the map and after that it started to take off.”
