With cost of Fingal festival now well over €1 million, council considers its future

The Flavours of Fingal festival is “the flagship event in the county”, said Fingal County Council events manager Paul Barnes, at a council committee meeting on 8 May. 

Sinn Féin Councillor John Smyth agreed. “It’s kind of the jewel in our crown of events, ” he said, at the meeting of the Balbriggan/Rush-Lusk/Swords Area Committee. 

But the annual two-day food and culture festival has also gotten really expensive, councillor officials have said. 

According to Barnes’s presentation at the area committee meeting, this summer’s event will be seeing cuts due to budget constraints.

Some events will be cut, and some shuttle buses, and an evening for people with sensory needs, he said.

Discussion around concerns for the cost of council events has rumbled on in the council chamber for several months. 

In general, the price tag on events just keeps rising, said John Quinlivan, Fingal’s director of economic, enterprise, tourism and cultural development late last year. 

“The continuing increases in costs of events is impacting hugely,” said Quinlivan, at the council’s budget meeting in December. 

So council managers and councillors plan to review the festival’s future over the coming months. 

Quinlivan hinted at contracting out its operation, rather than continuing to have council staff run it directly, looking for corporate sponsorships, and approaching Fáilte Ireland and other state bodies for funding. 

A draw

The  Flavours of Fingal runs on the first weekend of July at Newbridge House in Donabate.

This year, the council has plans for a dog agility competition, food stalls, magicians, puppet shows, and bouncy castles.

And for equestrian shows, craft-making demonstrations, livestock displays, live music, cooking shows, demonstrations of traditional crafts and trades, wellness activities, and lots of other things.

It is massively popular according to councillor after councillor. In 2024, over 60,000 people attended, Barnes said.

In past years, higher-ups have “pretended to congratulate me on doing something that the Queen or Obama couldn't do … in that I closed the M50 and the M1 down”, Barnes said. 

The councillors at the meeting laughed. 

“So we were anxious not to get back to that,” Barnes said, “and I was anxious to stay out of the roads policing jail.”

Later in the meeting when independent Councillor Darren Jack Kelly asked if the council should advertise the event Barnes said no.

If it gets any bigger than last year that would be an issue, he said. “One year we had 90,000 people and it was very tough,” he said.

Budget issues

In December, Quinlivan, Fingal’s director of economic, enterprise, tourism and cultural development, said that rising costs were becoming a real challenge to events in general. 

“And the expansion of the [council’s events] programme over recent years is becoming challenging to maintain,” Quinlivan said. “The events like Flavours, St Patrick's Day, Howth Maritime Festival … are becoming increasingly costly.”

The events budget for 2025 was due to rise by €300,000 to a total of €4.1 million, Quinlivan said. Of that, €1.3 million was for Flavours of Fingal.

“I love Flavours. I think it’s great. But I think in the overall context of the events programme, it’s maybe become a bit too big,” said Fianna Fáil Councillor Eoghan O’Brien. It may be worth looking at scaling it back, he said.

At the council’s February monthly meeting, Quinlivan recalled this discussion, and said he’d met recently with the council’s corporate policy group and they’d talked about what to do about Flavours. 

The corporate policy group includes the mayor and the councillors who chair the seven strategic policy committees. “It was considered best to proceed with Flavours this year,” Quinlivan said, and then evaluate its future in committee over the course of this year.

“We have been more and more directly providing the events, and we need to examine that model,” he said. “And like I said we’re going to examine the whole operation of Flavours of Fingal and how it’s funded.”

At the Balbriggan area committee meeting on 8 May the issue of the cost and scale of Flavours of Fingal came up again. “It's just, it goes up, year upon year upon year,” said Barnes, the council events manager.

He said council managers and councillors would discuss the festival’s future at a June strategic policy committee meeting. “How Flavours will continue – because it’s so popular, it’s very expensive to keep on for two days,” he said.

What about charging a fee to people who attend, asked independent Councillor Joe Newman? “We have to take whatever steps necessary obviously” to keep it going, he said.

The council tried that one year, said Barnes, the events manager. “And the cost-benefit analysis, as you wouldn’t be surprised to hear, of trying to make the venue a secure venue, didn’t work,” he said.

In March 2023, councillors in Dublin city agreed that officials could start to charge for tickets for some public events, as a way to better manage attendance.

The cuts

For this year, they’re trying to keep the budget down with cuts, said Barnes. “We have had to make painful cuts in some places.”

That included canceling the living history event, the vintage games, and circus events, to save €80,000, according to Barnes’s presentation at the meeting. 

They also cut the VIP/sponsors’ area and saved €10,000, and reducing capacity at the show jumping by 33 percent to save €20,000, it said.

They’ve also reduced shuttle bus services by 25 percent, saving €30,000, Barnes’s presentation says.

Traffic management is one of the usual challenges of the event, Barnes said. Getting people on and off a peninsula is not always going to be smooth, he said, and there will be rush hours when traffic peaks.

A “surprising number” of people walk to the festival, but cycling numbers could be better. Overall, he said, it’s about getting people to use public transport.

Last year, 37 percent of visitors got to Flavours by bus or train, 17 percent “cycle/walk”, 23 percent arrive by car, it says. And 23 percent – 16,000 people – by shuttle bus, it says. 

Labour Party Councillor James Humphries said it’s important to communicate changes to shuttle bus service to people in the community.

“Can you give as much advance notice to us as councillors? Because people have kind of got used to where there's a stop,” said Humphries.

Labour Party Councillor Corina Johnston suggested that councillors meet before the festival to talk about how best to get information on the shuttle bus changes out to the public.

“So I don't get a load of phone calls, and we all don't get enough phone calls on the first morning” – and so, Johnston said to Barnes “I won't be ringing you”. 

Sensory needs

The most controversial cut was to the budget for people with sensory needs attending Flavours of Fingal. 

The council is cutting a Friday night event that last year was entirely dedicated  to people who would benefit from a more low-key atmosphere, Barnes said at the 8 May area committee meeting.

A number of councillors had chimed in just to state their approval of these cuts. Although the Friday night event will be cut, the festival will still have a quiet space for people with sensory needs, Barnes said. 

“We'll have areas in the tent that goes in with the dividers and the quiet space, and then soft-play areas, and supplying equipment such as headphones,” he said. “And whatever has to be done just to give people a place of safety.” 

Barnes said that over the coming months, council managers and councillors would continue to discuss the events future funding and shape. 

“I know yous are already aware that we built the show from 12,000 people up to what it is now,” he said. 

“But I think to be fair to the show, we have to look at what its cost, vis-a-vis the value of other events that we could be producing around the county and getting valued here,” he said.

“That's going to come down to the members and the chief executive, and the processes there,” he said.

Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.