Boasting 'five star reviews' for its co-productions, making international press and drawing record numbers of attendees, this year's Galway International Arts Festival (GIAF ) has officially come to a close.
With a sold-out gig by the Saw Doctors at the Heineken Big Top bringing the festival to a close, the two week celebration of the arts in the city has been one of the most successful in GIAF history. Bringing in record crowds, GIAF's diverse programme of events for the 2024 festival has been credited with 'putting the city centre in the spotlight once again'.
Record attendances and increased accessibility measures
Recording attendances in excess of 400,000 again this year, this figure includes stand out events like Patricia Piccinini's visual arts exhibit, We Travel Together, which showcased at the Festival Gallery. Drawing a queue of some 13,000 attendees on just on Saturday, July 20 alone.
Though many elements of the festival have been deemed to be a huge success, the popularity and prevalence of free events proved to be a particularly popular draw to festival goers. This was especially true for the weekend exhibitions which took place in the middle of the two week extravaganza, drawing thousands to the city's streets to enjoy the free outdoor events. These events ranged from acrobats in Eyre Square, with Les P'Tit Bras' show West Wing, to Planète Vapeur's fantastical and magical Pegasus, to GIAF's entire visual arts programme.
A welcome addition to many attendees this year, was the broadening of the festival's accessibility measures. Introducing a 'suite of additional accessibility measures', GIAF 2024 featured Irish Sign Language interpreted and close captioned performances, a touch tour of the Festival Gallery and the provision of 'sensory backpacks', which are reported to have been 'extremely popular'.
Widespread praise
The festival as a whole drew widespread praise, with the Sunday Independent calling it ‘breathtaking’, while GIAF’s co-productions also received critical acclaim, with stellar reviews for both its 2024 co-productions, Reunion and Unspeakable Conversations.
Receiving five stars from The Irish Times and Irish Arts Review, Reunion was described as 'exceptional', a 'zinger of a play' and a 'masterclass'. The Sunday Independent described Reunion as a 'thundering cracker of pure entertainment... intelligent, funny and thought provoking, and RTE's Arena Programme labelled it to be a 'non-stop laugh-out loud drama from beginning to end'. A GIAF and Landmark Productions co-production, Reunion will be later showcased at the Dublin Theatre Festival, with a run at the Gaiety Theatre from October 8 to 13.
Another similarly lauded and praised GIAF co-production is Unspeakable Conversations. A co-production of GIAF and Once-Off Productions, Unspeakable Conversations was praised by critics, with the Irish Times calling it a 'thoughtful and thought-provoking, provocative show', and The Telegraph declaring it to be 'brilliantly preformed and powerfully engaging'.
There were also five star reviews for Druid’s Endgame, with the Financial Times calling it ‘mesmerisingly assured ... without mitigating Beckett’s cosmic pessimism’ with ‘Hynes’s staging shows us that there is still fun to be had'; and The Observer praising Garry Hynes’s ‘searing direction’, which made ‘Beckett new ... assured, meticulous, insightful and emotionally powerful'.
Extraordinary response from audiences and artists
Following the end of what has been one of GIAF's most successful runs in the festival's history, Galway Arts Festival CEO, John Crumlish expressed his thanks saying, “It was a privilege to present GIAF 2024 and, on behalf of us all, I would like to thank our audiences who attended in such numbers.
"This was our biggest festival to date and we are very thankful to all those who came, those that supported us and all the great artists whose work made it all possible.”
Similar sentiments were shared by the festival's artistic director, Paul Fahy, who said, "“We have had an extraordinary response from audiences and artists to this year’s Festival. It is always such a thrill to present great art from Ireland and around the world in Galway and our artists loved performing and showing their work to such an appreciative, engaged and enthusiastic audience.
"We are extremely grateful to all our artists, co-producers and partners for their incredible work once again this year.”
Following two weeks of fun, Galway says goodbye to the 2024 festival, and now waits eagerly to see what the 2025 festival will bring.
