Maiden City Festival attracts record numbers

THE Maiden City Festival last week attracted record numbers at its numerous events throughout the week.

The Siege Tales characters on the Walls, originally intended to be performing a regular times throughout the day, have been worked non-stop.

A spokesman said: “The Siege Story in the Cathedral has had audiences of over 100 – our thanks to the Dean and Cathedral staff for fitting everything in during the on-going renovations. The cafe Culture Bite series are well attended and bringing a diversity of sounds to the City’s lunchtime. The Memorial Hall was packed every night and the webcast on Thursday night effectively doubled the audience. The historical Lectures also well received.”

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David Hoey, Marketing Manager for the Maiden City Festival added: “We made a decision last year to focus strongly on creating a visitor experience that would create a memorable day out for anyone coming to Londonderry. This has been a huge success. I have seen the same people at breakfast in a city cafe having a bite to eat before they go home late in the afternoon, happy if exhausted. While the Memorial Hall museum guides reported July had been slower than last year, they haven’t been saying that about this past week’s visitor numbers. ”

William Moore, Festival co-ordinator commented: “All our hard work over recent months has paid off. We are particularly delighted at being able to offer history off the pages of a book and out there live on the Walls and in the Cathedral. It is always the way that during the week the Festival Committee doesn’t see the whole picture. But the feedback is tremendous, and we can always catch up next week and in the months ahead on our YouTube, Flickr and website channels. A big thanks to all our funders, the performers, our volunteers and to all those from all communities who taken part, rang the Festival office with good wishes and have made the Festival such a great success.”

Local historian and member of the Apprentice Boys, Tony Crowe said the festival was a tremendous success “in all its aspects”.

He added: “It was a resounding success, and there were massive numbers of tourists who showed a lot of interest in what was going on and a number of them accepted invitations to come along to the hall this week.”

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Mr Crowe said that towns in other parts of the world, such as Williamsburg in Virginia, and York had achieved great success by having regular re-enactments, adding that it is his hope that something similar could be done in Londonderry throughout the year.

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