Today was set to be an exciting day at Northern Ireland Festival of Writing HQ as we were scheduled to announce the return of the festival in June this year.
For the last year our small team have tirelessly connected with people across the industry to put together an exciting programme bigger and better than our debut festival last year.
Bringing people together to celebrate their love of writing in all its forms was our mission and we will not lose that.
However, due to the Covid-19 outbreak, we’re entering a stage of re-planning anrd re-structuring. Whilst, at this stage, we won’t be progressing any bookings for physical events we do have other plans in the mix.
Firstly, over the coming months as Northern Ireland moves towards a potential full or semi-lockdown, we want you to know that we are still 100% committed to achieving as much of our goals as we can. In due course we will be launching some online events, articles and maybe a video or two to keep you going.
Secondly, we’ve rescheduled the dates of the festival it will now take place from 17th October – 17th November 2020.
We anticipate the Festival Programme will be revealed in its entirety at the end of May/mid-June. We are grateful for your support to date and going forward.
In what will no doubt be a difficult time ahead for us all and indeed for the Arts in Northern Ireland, we need to ask for your help.
In our preparations for this year’s event, we were able to secure £5,000 towards our operational costs via a pledge from a Government body to MatchFund us if we were to launch a CrowdFund UK Campaign. Of course we agreed to this and as a result, our campaign is now live. We tried to reschedule but faced the real possibility that we would lose the MatchFund if we did.
It is with that in mind we ask for your support over the next 4 weeks. This can come in the form of a donation, the opportunity to buy Platinum, Gold, Silver or Bronze Tickets via the Rewards section of our campaign page, or simply by sharing this statement as far and wide as possible.
As you may already be aware, we are a not for profit organisation overseen by Merlin Arts CIC. We operate to develop the work of aspirational and emerging writers in all genres and to give them a platform alongside more established writers, to showcase their work.
We also exist to help people use writing and communication to develop confidence and overcome personal and physical barriers to good mental health, positive relationships, employability and ability to deal with everyday interactions with others.
We envisage the need and desire for our Festival to be greater than ever before come October, but we cannot make it a reality without your help.
Please visit our page https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/the-northern-ireland-festival…
Thanking You for Your Help & Support
James Murphy, Festival Director
