433 applicants of the Night-Time Economy Support Scheme announced

As announced over the summer, the Irish government set out a €4 million government fund for off-peak hours live events in pubs, restaurants, nightclubs, galleries & cafés under the Night-Time Economy Support Scheme, as promised in The Report of the Night-Time Economy Taskforce.

The successful applicants were announced by Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, Catherine Martin, T.D with 433 organisations offered funding from the scheme out of 470 who applied.

It included rural applications totalling over 50% of the successful awardees (252 venues) including pubs, nightclubs, cafés, theatres, arts centres, galleries, museums and retail outlets.

The Scheme included a specific strand of funding for unlicensed premises such as cafés, dry bars and other suitable venues to support diversification and inclusivity in the Night-Time Economy.  Cafés and unlicensed premises have been awarded over €434,000 in funding.

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“The Taskforce recommended that a new scheme should be developed to support venues, such as pubs, cafés and alcohol free venues, to trial new events, activities and initiatives at night, with a particular focus on off-peak times, to encourage an increased variety of night-time entertainment offerings, increase footfall in our towns and cities in the evenings and create employment for artists/performers, with a particular focus on new and emerging acts.”

Applications were invited under two separate Strands:

• Strand A: Licensed premises –pubs, restaurants and wine bars, nightclubs and other suitable licensed premises that operate in the Evening and Night-Time Economy, who want to trial a series of events/cultural activities (minimum of four events, but not limited to 4 events) during off peak times from Monday to Thursday (excluding weekends) from 6pm onwards.

• Strand B: Unlicensed premises – cafés, including cafés that may have their premises in a retail outlet, dry bars, local galleries and other suitable non-licensed premises, who want to trial a series of events/cultural activities (minimum of four events, but not limited to 4 events) in the later evening or night-time hours from 6pm, with a commitment to open until at least 9pm in the evening, from Monday to Sunday.

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This scheme operated with a limited fund of €4 million. The scheme provided 75% of the required funding, with applicants required to fund the remaining 25%. A maximum allowable grant of €10,000 per business or venue was available. It was a condition of funding that all artists and performers were paid.

Sample events:

• The Factory nightclub in Waterford were allocated funding for a number of off-peak electronic music events throughout October.
• Tramline in Dublin hosted 4 high profile DJ and dancing nights every Wednesday in September.
• THE OL’ 55  in Galway City, held a series of events, in October, focusing on grassroots female performers only who are based in Galway City. 
• Baggotonia – a number of pubs along Baggot street celebrated the literary history and famous literary figures associated with the venues on this street through theatrical performances this month.
• Birr Theatre and Arts Centre ran “Women In Comedy” – a series of comedy evenings on Thursdays in September.

Unlicensed events included:

• Windmill Lane Recording Studios, Artists included ‘The 4 of Us’, LGBTQ artist ‘Tadhg’, BellX1 frontman, Paul Noonan and Daithí Ó Drónaí’s new joint musical endeavour, ‘House Plants’.    Taking place weekly in November 2022. These events will be filmed and posted on social media and the Windmill Lane Recording You tube channel.
• The Circus Factory, Cork, turned theirregular training space into a late night venue during October.
• Kerry Writers’ Museum held ten week programme of performances by some of Kerry’s leading artists, called “The Rambling Sessions”.

Here’s the full list.

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