‘IT WAS 2009 and you suddenly had people who were newly unemployed, who were used to being busy, wanting to volunteer. It was this combination of the mix of skills and the time to give that was a key element to the success of the festival,” recalls Phizzfest founding member Marian Fitzpatrick.
The idea for a local, voluntarily-run festival in Dublin’s Phibsborough had first surfaced at a birthday party that year. The recession had left plenty of people with time on their hands; while it had become clear the development plans envisaged for Dalymount Park, Phibsborough shopping centre and Mountjoy Prison were coming to little. This meant the timing for gaining people’s commitment to what was to become Phizzfest was just right.
Those at the party decided to call a public meeting to test the water. Phibsborough locals such as Jim Culleton, artistic director of Fishamble: the New Play Company, and Willie White, former artistic director of the Project Arts Centre and now of the Ulster Bank Dublin Theatre Festival, were present. “The room was full of people who wanted the same thing,” says Fitzpatrick. “The contributions from the floor were so inspiring, it just encouraged other people to get involved.” A committee was formed at that meeting and the immediate priority was to set about securing funding.
“Somebody told us that Croke Park had a fund for the communities within their catchment area and in January 2010 we asked them to help us fund our first arts festival in Phibsborough,” Fitzpatrick explains. One of the objectives of the fund is to, as she puts it, “incubate” community projects within 1km of Croke Park.
Following an application process, this backing was in place by March 2010. “It was such a boost to receive the support of the fund, particularly as we had not yet had a chance to prove ourselves,” says Tina Robinson, a founding member of Phizzfest and initiator of that seminal chat in 2009.
The fund has been title sponsor of Phizzfest for the past three years – and having this support has inspired other sponsors to get involved. A coachload of household names has also been cajoled into taking part in what is now an annual event each September. In 2010 the inaugural festival included poet Dermot Bolger, comic Kevin McAleer and novelist Anne Enright, and last year saw classical guitarist Redmond O’Toole and band leader Jerry Fish come on board.
Phizzfest last year won the People’s Choice award at Dublin Living Awards, and it was also all-Ireland winner at the Epic awards for the voluntary arts sector. President Michael D Higgins marked the Epic award win with a reception at Áras an Uachtaráin earlier this year for 50 people – artists, fundraisers, programmers, designers – all volunteers with Phizzfest. “He spoke to all of us and found a common ground with everybody,” says Robinson. The President knew the festival well, having attended the opening of its visual arts trail last year – when hot on the presidential canvass.
Could Fitzpatrick have foreseen in 2009 that they would celebrate the festival’s success at the Áras so soon? “Certainly not at the very outset, but Phizzfest has a special energy about it – there’s a magic to it, that makes us feel now that anything is possible,” she says.
Robinson says the festival is completely voluntary, and that things don’t work out “if someone feels they are there under duress. They have to be there because they feel they want to [be there]”. Fitzpatrick notes the team has learned from its mistakes. “We did find we should have put some people in other roles. We learned to allow people to just give what they can – not everybody can give the same commitment. In the beginning we probably were a bit unrealistic in terms of expecting too much effort from people – the people management is probably the biggest challenge.”
Fishamble presented Forgotten by Pat Kinevan at Phizzfest 2010, and key to its success was having a suitably imposing venue – the Pillar Room at the Mater hospital. As Phibsborough has no dedicated community space, organisers face the challenge every year of securing vacant premises for office, temporary exhibition and performance spaces. “While estate agents and landlords are more than willing to donate the space for the duration of the festival, it’s usually down to the wire before final confirmation comes through,” says Fitzpatrick.
Festival highlights in the past two years have included a cookery demonstration by Patrick Guilbaud. Says Fitzpatrick: “He came and it was absolutely brilliant, and all the women were swooning!”
Last year, the handball alley at Phibsborough Fire Station was transformed for an exhibition of 9/11 and World Trade Center photographs by Finglas native Joe Woolhead, now official photographer for the site. Both organisers also mention last year’s tour of the Grangegorman Community Museum at St Brendan’s Psychiatric hospital, the contents of which have since been moved to the National Archives.
They point out that Phizzfest is “all year round”. As Robinson says, the work for next year’s festival begins the day after this year’s ends. Phizzfest 2012 will include Pauline McLynn, a turn by Cork comic Maeve Higgins, an audience with soccer pundit John Giles in a conversation about his life in football with broadcaster Cathal Mac Coille, and a performance in an intimate church setting by the Dublin Guitar Quartet.
Phizzfest 2012 runs from September 1st to 9th. See Phizzfest.ie