Chamber unveil ambitious plan for Castlebar Christmas Festival

Edwin McGreal

Castlebar Chamber of Commerce have revealed exciting plans for a Christmas festival in the town.
The Chamber say such a festival could bring 25,000 extra people into the town this Christmas and even more in subsequent years.
And central to their plans is the installation of an ice-rink in the town for the duration of the festival.
Wilson Bird, President of Castlebar Chamber of Commerce, gave a presentation on the plans to last Thursday’s monthly meeting of Castlebar Municipal District.
He outlined that the festival would run from the end of November to the first week in January and help to pitch Castlebar as a premier shopping town.
“The main goal is to compete with Galway and Sligo. We need to move away from competing with Westport. Galway is congested, parking is three or four times more expensive and we have all the shops here that are in Galway.
“We should believe we’re ahead of Sligo but we need to believe it. There’s a tendency in Castlebar to worry about Westport. We shouldn’t. We should really market ourselves as the second shopping town in Connacht,” said Mr Bird.
He said for the festival to succeed, the town needs to work with nearby Westport.  
“Westport has the Winter Wonderland experience in Westport House. This festival will bring a lot to both towns. People can stay for two nights, shop in Castlebar and experience this festival and then go to Westport and experience Winter Wonderland. We will be telling them to ‘come to Mayo’ rather than just to one of the towns,” he said.
Other attractions would include, he said, a ‘Santa Trail’ around Castlebar, buses to and from Westport and rotating late bars on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights in Castlebar for the duration of the festival.

Boost
He forecast the festival could bring 1,000 extra people to Castlebar midweek and 3,000 to 4,000 extra people at weekends. He said the festival should provide a boost to struggling restaurants, pubs and shops in Castlebar but needs ‘everyone to buy-in’ in order for it to succeed.
He said local businesses would need to buy ‘platinum’, ‘gold’ or ‘silver’ packages and ‘we need 70-80 percent buy in’ from local businesses. He revealed the cost of the ice-rink is €170,000. The Mall and the Military Barracks were two of the locations suggested for the ice-rink.
He said part of the promotional campaign would be a targeted media campaign in Galway, Roscommon, Sligo and Leitrim to bring shoppers to Castlebar and Westport.
“It’s one of the more positive presentations we’ve had. It has vision. We should embrace and endorse. There is a lot of negativity out there and there’s a reason for that. To improve things requires people with imagination and this deserves our full support,” said Cllr Al McDonnell.
Mayo County Council’s Director of Services Peter Duggan also welcomed the plans.
“Part of our brief is to support enterprise and general employment. I would have thought that the biggest incentive for business is footfall. Anything that increases footfall and creates a positive image has to be welcomed.
“I like that this has identified one of the strengths of the town - its shopping. I accept there’s a lack of hotels and it is important to link in with Westport and look at the county as a whole. Castlebar is an important retail town in the region,” he said.