Derry Halloween: Rising costs and shrinking funds may force review of city's premier festival

At the September meeting of the Council’s Business and Culture Committee, Head of Culture, Aeidin McCarter, presented members with an updated report on planning and programme development for this year’s Halloween Festival, which will run from October 25 to October 31.

Ms McCarter said Derry Halloween 2024 will focus on 'Awakening the Walled City' within the streets of the Walled City centre, and this element will run from October 28 to 30 with the main parade and fireworks display taking place on Thursday, October 31.

Programme highlights include Witchy Wonderland, a walkthrough experience of circus and spectacle on the City Walls, and the Elemental Garden at Ebrington, which uses fire, illuminated towers and directed performances, to 'create an elemental world' at the square.

“The campaign's key messages will highlight Derry Halloween as Europe’s largest Halloween festival and the must-visit Halloween destination,” Ms McCarter said.

“The marketing campaign is being delivered with a budget that has been reduced by 32 per cent over the past two years but, despite this decrease, the campaign is strategically designed to effectively reach key audience segments across Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, and Great Britain.

“The impact of cost increases, funding cuts and overstretched interdepartmental budgets means that the delivery of this award-winning event in its current format will have to be reviewed going forward.

“An application to the Tourism Northern Ireland (TNI) International Event Fund was submitted and an award of the maximum £100,000 has been made.

"This is a reduction of £5,000 on the previous years and in addition to cost increases and funding cuts for this festival, a gap has been growing regarding the funding allocated for marketing of the event.

“As the profile of Derry Halloween has increased, due in part to it gaining international status, so too has the necessity for a larger marketing budget.

“Currently the overall Halloween budget for Derry and Strabane is £470,000 -£335,000 from rates, £25,000 from the EO , £100,000 in TNI funding, and £10,000 in other income - and the impact of rising costs does ultimately impact the spend on programming itself.

“This is providing a yearly challenge to continue to deliver world-class programming.”

Sinn Féin councillor Grace Uí Niallais suggested writing to the Department for the Economy to request assistance, and asked if officers had created a report on the impact of the marketing budget cuts in 2022 and 2023.

“It would just be interesting to see,” she added. “Because social media and everything has moved on from that time.

“So it would just be interesting to see if the cuts had a huge impact on the scope of the campaign and the audience that it's reaching, as you are taking new approaches to how the campaign is being advertised.

“Has there also ever been a report done on how much benefit the Hallowe’en has on businesses, even things like small shops?”

Ms McCarter said officers had been in “continual dialogue” with TNI the Department for the Economy, but the issue was that the majority of funding is channelled through TNI.

“So we are in continual discussions with [TNI] around support for Halloween and how we can do that in whatever ways we can,” She said.

“Regarding the analysis of the [impact of budget cuts] we are looking at it year-on-year but it is very difficult as you can cut your marketing budget and not see the impact of that for a number of years, and what we're seeing now really is the result of ten years of consistent marketing".

Ms McCarter said an Economic Impact Evaluation (EIE) of local businesses had not been carried out since 2018 and was “overdue”, but was expensive.

She concluded: “We do survey the businesses and we do get a lot of that feedback and results, but a full EIE requires an investment and the economists.

“It's another thing we're talking to TNI about, because it previously would have been part of their funding.”

Andrew Balfour,

Local Democracy Reporter