Open House Festival Bangor is celebrating its 10th anniversary this summer with a programme of events at Bangor Castle Walled Garden during August, plus a series of free events in the city throughout July and August.
It was established in Belfast in 1999 and moved to Bangor in 2013 and been organically grown and tenderly looked after by two local people, Kieran Gilmore and Alison Gordon, who are still at the helm.
At the heart of Open House is an eclectic programme of lovingly curated bespoke events, including folk on a boat, an island picnic trip, pop-up food events, local interest talks and tours alongside a run of shows in including music, comedy and film, plus free concerts at the bandstand in Ward Park every Sunday.
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Comedian Micky Bartlett, who performed at the inaugural Open House Festival Bangor back in August 2013, will open the run of Walled Garden events on Wednesday, August 16.
Musicians’ musician and one-time pop star Nick Lowe, known for his late 1970s hits I love the Sound of Breaking Glass and Cruel to Be Kind will perform at the garden on August 26.
Other acts include the acclaimed Van Morrison tribute band Celtic Soul, who have played at the festival to sold-out audiences every year since 2013, blues guitar legend Ronnie Greer, who will be making his fourth Open house appearance with his powerhouse blues band, and comedian Shane Todd who has become a firm festival favourite.
Free events include Picnic in the Park concerts at Ward Park every Sunday afternoon in July and August. These events have grown in popularity over the years and now attract audiences from Bangor, the rest of North Down, Belfast, and beyond.
Seaside Revival Vintage Festival, a celebration of Bangor’s heyday as a thriving seaside resort that was curated by Open House back in 2018, returns to the city’s seafront on August 12 with a full day of free entertainment, including live music, swing dancing, and the annual classic car show.
The annual Pickie to Pierswim, resurrected by Open House in 2019 following a thirty-year absence, will take place on Saturday June 24.
Reflecting on the past ten years, Open House founder and director, Kieran Gilmore, said: “When we brought the festival to Bangor after fourteen years of running events in Belfast’s Cathedral Quarter, our objective was, and remains to this day, to help regenerate the town we lived in and loved through arts and culture.
"We truly didn’t know what to expect, but we instinctively sensed the time was right.
“In our very first programme, I wrote the word ‘There is a sea change in the air in Bangor, with a new sense of optimism and a general view that art and culture will play a key role in the future regeneration of the town. We hope that this festival will help in some small way, by showing that Bangor town centre can host nternational acts, and that the town has a wealth of world class artists of its own just waiting to be championed.’
“Well, a lot has changed since then. Bangor is of course now a city. The cultural renaissance that we championed is thriving, with a host of talented musicians, artists and writers emerging from this small place in the past decade, including The Florentinas, who are poised for international recognition."
In the past decade, Open House Festival has staged just under 1,000 events in Bangor (a third of which were free) to a combined audience of 306,500 and has injected an estimated £12m into the city’s economy.
Kieran continued: “This year’s line-up has a more home-grown focus with some incredibly talented and highly acclaimed Northern Irish performers - which we believe is the best way to celebrate ten years of doing our thing in Bangor.”
Open House development director, Alison Gordon added: “The support we receive from our audiences and the general public has grown and flourished year by year.
"In 2013 barely anyone in Bangor had heard about Open House. Today it would be difficult to live in the city and surrounding areas and not know about it.
"There is still a lot of work to do, and we are always planning for the future, but for now we want to focus on having a wonderful summer and a successful tenth anniversary festival.”
For more information about Open House Festival, see here
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