We worked with Mid Ulster District Council on the development and delivery of the two day Tafelta Festival in Magherafelt town centre. The name Magherafelt, according to some authorities, comes from “The Plain of Felta” and is anciently known as “Tafelta,” the House of Felta. As such, the Tafelta Festival has a focus on history, culture and literature in and around Magherafelt. To truly embrace what Magherafelt has available, this festival was held within shops, cafes, bars, restaurants, the library, shopping centre, and community spaces in the town.
The Tafelta Festival was no ordinary festival and had many different elements which we proudly brought from concept to delivery. To incorporate the theme and to reach a wide audience we produced an event plan that included children and family activities, adult writing events with local authors, NI live music in local bars and restaurants and a short story competition for Primary aged children. Furthermore, we designed a business engagement initiative to get as many of the local businesses involved as possible.
Development
During the planning of this event we made visits to Magherafelt to not only get a lay of the land but also to speak to local people and businesses on their thoughts and feelings about the festival. This supported us with our planning of events and activities and what would be more suited to certain locations. You might not have thought of putting Lego Animation into the Bank of Ireland which is why it is important to have site visits and to discuss the activities with staff. It was also from this that we developed the business engagement activity.
From these initial meetings and visits we were able to plan a schedule of delivery and made contact with a number of suppliers as well as our in-house live events team for all the technical requirements and filming team. From here we began to implement our plan of action. We booked all acts and activities, arranged for all props and costumes to be sourced and arranged all the finer details with each venue hosting the events.
It was during this time that we introduced the short story competition. We worked with a number of primary schools in Magherafelt and developed a “How to Write a Story” session to be delivered to these schools so that young people learnt the craft of writing short stories. We were able to provide this with the facilitation support of Beam Creative Network.
We also supported Mid Ulster Council with the marketing elements of the festival and arranged for a photo call and used the established branding for the Tafelta Festival to design other marketing materials including the business engagement map and quiz boards.
The safety of the participants, the general pupil and our staff is paramount and therefore we carried out a detailed Health and Safety Plan including risk assessments per location and activity, as well as a site map.
Delivery
We were able to provide a number of varied activities and events throughout the festival that catered to different participants’ wants and needs, as well as staying true to the themes of literature, culture and history.
Some of the children and Family Events included reading and illustration workshops with Clive McFarland & Barry Falls, Alice in Wonderland themed tea party at Bob and Berts, Storytelling with Mary Poppins at Maud’s Parlour and other Disney Princesses at Bryson’s. There were also performances such as Monologues That Matter, a Puppet show taking place at intervals throughout the event at the Meadow Lane Shopping Centre & interactive Drama Storytelling from Theatre without Walls
Due to the popularity we expected to receive for some events we produced, organised and managed a ticketed system for activities to ensure the manageability of each activity; A minority of these events had a waiting list.
We also had number for other activities including street art, arts and crafts, as well as a number for Walkabout Performing character from Premiere Circus and facepainting and balloon modelling provided by Twinkle and Twist
For the adult writing events we were fortunate to have local authors of novels, flash fiction and poetry such as Gerard Brennan, Byddi Lee, David Braziel and Maura Johnston
For those businesses that were unable to hold events due to size, space or availability throughout the Tafelta Festival we included them in our business engagement. This consisted of a scavenger style quiz. Each business that was included had a puzzle to solve, which we designed and printed on large boards, and families could take their map and answer sheet, either downloaded or collected from the Bridewell Centre, and solve all the puzzles to receive a prize. To reinforce the themes of this project we also included a ‘Book Swap’ that was free to the general public within a number of businesses.
Our services on this event
Event Management
Photo Call
Graphic Design
Promotional video production
Entertainment and Workshops
Business Engagement