This year’s Open House Festival is running under a big colourful seaside banner proclaiming they’re “Celebrating, Commemorating and Creating a Creative Town”. Over the past few years, nothing on the Northern Irish music and arts scene has been truer as we’ve watched world class acts and local heroes sling guitars and purvey their arts in bustling seafront venues. And we’re ready to go again!
This year’s programme boasts around 125 events in over 40 locations and, as has become the norm, the festival will run for the entire month of August on the County Down coast. With music, film, food and drink, theatre, literature now standard items on the Open House menu, 2016 sees the addition of magic, dance, lectures and mystery to proceedings. What is this mystery they speak of? Well, if we knew that…
Commemorating anniversaries, celebrating local talent and forging new creative partnerships are some of the themes of this year’s festival. And as this is the Tourism NI Year of Food and Drink, showcasing fabulous local produce in many of the town’s great restaurants will be focal.
Kieran Gilmore – Festival Director
Festival highlights include a 40th-anniversary concert by The Damned, a 70th birthday tribute to ACDC’s Bon Scott, homage paid to Shakespeare with an outdoor performance of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ 400 years after the Bard’s death and a welcome return to Bangor for local girl Niamh Perry who’ll perform in the town for the first time since her breakthrough on the BBC hit show ‘I’d Do Anything’.
There’s plenty on offer for us at Folk and Tumble and you fans of the indie, folk and blues with performances from the likes of Dana Masters, PORTS and shows from Spirit Family Reunion and Iron and Wine’s Sam Beam with Jesca Hoop, which could be my highlights of the summer.
It’s great to see Open House back again with another terrific programme of exciting events for the 2016 festival. From music to comedy, food, film and theatre, there’s something for everyone, including many free events, offering more and more ways for local audiences to experience high-quality arts events right on their doorstep.
Maria McAlister – Arts Council of Northern Ireland
Open House Festival Bangor is supported by Ards and North Down Borough Council, the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, Tourism NI and NI Year of Food and Drink. The County Down Spectator is the official media partner for the festival. We’ll see you all down the front with sunburnt smiley faces and a big cold pint of Guinness.