Saltwater organisers urge locals to let out rooms

COMING TO WESTPORT Dermot Kennedy is one of the big names playing the Saltwater Festival in Westport this summer.

Large crowd expected to attend new Westport music festival

Ger Flanagan

WITH Westport’s newest festival, Saltwater, coming to town over the June Bank Holiday Weekend, the organisers have urged all the local communities nearby to help make the inaugural year a success by opening their doors for short-term accommodation.
Saltwater is taking place in the grounds of Westport House Estate, with over 60 acts performing across three main stages over the course of the weekend, with the likes of Dermot Kennedy, Johnny Marr, The Corona’s and Basement Jaxx on show.
The festival is being organised by the people behind the hugely popular Sea Sessions and can host up to 10,000 people.
But therein lies a logistical headache for the organisers, as there simply are not enough hotel beds to cater for festival goers and the non-festival goers who will be flocking to Westport during that busy period.
That is why organisers Ray O’Donoghue and Daniel Browne are now appealing to locals to open their homes for short-term vacancies, through agencies like Air BnB.
“We already know that the hotels are pretty much booked out in the town, and we believe there’s over 500 Air BnBs,” he told The Mayo News. “We’re pleading with the people of Westport to open their homes and welcome the people who’ve got tickets, people from right across the country, as well as a lot of locals too. We want the whole community to get involved and benefit from this.”
The target demographic for the festival, they say, is ‘late 20s to mid-50s’, with a wider focus on ‘expressing life on Ireland’s rugged wild Atlantic coast, celebrating music, food, culture, wellness and the rich heritage of Westport’.
They say they chose Westport for this event because they saw its untapped potential. “This is such a beautiful town with a rich heritage, and we’re coming here to give Mayo the festival it deserves,” Browne said. “But the logistics of holding one are quite difficult too.
“It’s already going to be a very busy weekend, so we’re trying to figure out how we’re going to bring 10,000 people on top of that.  
“Our approach has always been that this has to work for everybody. It’s not a traditional festival where you bring it to the middle of nowhere and extract every cent available – we don’t feel that is right.
“We like to integrate the town, which we feel is as important as one of the main stages. People who come to a festival may want to go to a restaurant, do some shopping, and go to the pub for a couple of pints.
“The big word for us is ‘Partnership’. This will be a family-friendly event with glamping in the mature grounds of Westport House’s 800-acre estate. We’d love to see people cycle the Greenway or hike Croagh Patrick, explore Westport town by day and then settle into the festival for the afternoon.
“Its very much about being the sum of its parts and about people experiencing all that Westport has to offer. We see the festival as being complimentary to what exists.”
The tagline for the festival is ‘Taste the Salt’, promoting the idea of condensing the whole Wild Atlantic Experience into one weekend and one location during the summer.
The organisers are also working closely with all the local authorities, as well as Bus Éireann, to supply direct travel from Dublin, Galway and Sligo, as well as shuttle buses from Castlebar, Ballina and other local nearby communities ‘in a 20-mile block’ from Westport.
Saltwater Festival Westport will be held in the grounds of Westport House on June Bank Holiday weekend, May 29, 30 and 31 in 2020.
Tickets are available now including camping, glamping, camper van options, kids tickets and VIP tickets.

MORE  For more information visit www.saltwater.ie or find Saltwater on Facebook.