Belfast International Arts Festival & Belfast Harbour
The Context
Belfast Harbour is Northern Ireland’s principal maritime gateway and logistics hub. Their real estate land holding extends to some 2,000 acres, representing circa 20% of the Belfast City area.
Belfast International Arts Festival is the city’s longest-running international arts event. Originally established in 1962, the event covers theatre, dance, classical and roots music, visual, film and digital arts and literature accompanied by outreach and education events. It takes place every October in venues and locations across Belfast.
The Challenge
Belfast Harbour is committed to supporting Belfast through strategic collaboration and grassroots initiatives, ensuring that it remains a Port for All. Belfast Harbour recognises that for many communities within Belfast, first-hand access to the Arts, particularly high quality, acclaimed productions, is extremely limited. The partnership with BIAF allows them to break down some of these barriers.
Belfast Harbour’s responsible business activity is driven by four key pillars: people, partnership, planet and place. This partnership enables Belfast Harbour to break down barriers that not only prevent communities from accessing the Arts but that prevent them from feeling connected to Belfast Harbour. As part of the BIAF programme, the team aims to build and strengthen relationships with new ‘harder to reach’ communities through offering an increased number of tickets to charities and other community organisations. All of this helps Belfast Harbour to articulate its support for BIAF to these groups, ensuring that their inclusive ‘people-focused’ message is shared.
The partnership with BIAF aligns perfectly with Belfast Harbour’s commitment to the Creative Industries sector in Northern Ireland and builds upon their long-established history of supporting the Arts and creating a space for the industry to grow and flourish. The partnership allows them to continue to support employment and skills development and develop future audiences for both the Arts and Creative Industries sectors.
The Solution
Belfast Harbour supports BIAF’s annual community ticketing scheme.
In providing free tickets for community groups to attend FIQ! Groupe Acrobatique de Tangier, a contemporary circus show, the partners provided an opportunity to connect with the arts in The Grand Opera House, and enabled groups to experience world-class performance from the Middle East and North Africa.
For 2023, BIAF introduced a meet and greet at venues for the groups attending and offered support with transport. They promoted free activities within their Embrace programme with participants learning new skills from professional performers, building confidence, resilience and learning about pathways to employment within the arts, and encouraged teamwork with volunteering opportunities.
They incorporated elements of their Accessibility programme into the scheme, hosting a special pre-show ‘audio descriptive’ talk for young people from Angel Eyes, who are blind or partially sighted. They heard about what to expect from the show before taking their front-row seats.
A&BNI investment made free transport for groups possible, ensuring that a wrap around experience was offered to attendees. For those fearful of exploring non-familiar parts of the city, who find public transport inaccessible or lack the means to afford it, the scheme offered safe transit.
The Results
The 2023 partnership enabled 16 diverse community groups to benefit from 207 complimentary tickets, expanding access to festival events.
Community groups included people seeking asylum, youth groups from across Belfast, members of the Afro-Caribbean Support Organisation of NI, new mothers, visually impaired young people, members of LGBTQ+ groups, people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness, and people suffering from mental ill-health.
The partners have grown the number of groups they engage with by 56% from the previous year and increased audience diversity. They aim to continue this expansion of the scheme in 2024 and beyond.
“Our partnership with Belfast Harbour has grown and become more ambitious over the years to the point where we are looking to create an even bigger impact for those members of the public who might not have previously or rarely connected with arts and culture.
The success of our ongoing and developing partnership is not only measured by the numbers that get involved but by their overwhelmingly positive response to festival events.
In 2023 we increased our community reach to include a further 6 new marginalised groups, representing an even broader cross-section of our diverse Belfast community.”
Richard Wakely, Artistic Director and CEO, Belfast International Arts Festival
“As more and more people than ever before continue to realise the value of the arts and cultural sector to our city, our partnership allows us to engage with key communities as well as new audiences, promoting the thriving arts and cultural sector in Belfast and showcasing the best local creative talent.
Working with BIAF supports Belfast Harbour’s strategic objective of connecting communities to the port and the Harbour Estate. We were delighted to be recognised for the continuing development of the scheme with the ‘Commitment To Diversity’ Award at the 2024 Arts and Business NI Awards.”
Jenni Barkley, Communications and Corporate Responsibility Manager, Belfast Harbour
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