Indie-pendent spirit

Niamh O'Mahony meets the music fans who turned a trailer stage into a legitimate festival 

Creating a new business and building a brand while maintaining the original ethos behind the idea is never easy. Add in the extra factor of it being a music festival and the recent successes enjoyed by the team that have brought Indiependence to Mitchelstown in north Cork for the past six years start to look all the more impressive.

Born out of the old Michelstown music festival, the first Indiependence event was held in the town’s main square in 2006 with just one stage. By 2008, the free concert was attracting crowds of 10,000, but the five men behind it had different ideas. “It was too big." event controller Shane Dunne explained to Cork Biz. "The festival had outgrown itself, so we decided to move it to a green site for 2009,” 

“There was a lot of rain that year but everyone enjoyed it enough to convince us that this could work. Last year we moved to a really brilliant site – Deer Farm just outside the town – and it was the first time we felt that it was like a proper festival weekend. The Sunday was a sell out; we got great weather and massive feedback. The biggest compliment is that people who were here last year are coming back again – and bringing their friends this time.”

Word has spread further afield. Editors, Therapy?, Ash, the Coronas, Whipping Boy and Ham Sandwich are all confirmed for 2011 and even locals – who haven’t attended in big numbers so far – are getting excited about this year’s year event (July 29th – 31st). For Shane and his colleagues, this means raising their own lofty standards even higher.

“This is a business and we do need to cover costs, but it’s never been about the money. We want to put on great bands and to look after the people who attend – we want them to have a brilliant weekend. We keep ticket prices as low as we can, we keep the price of pints down – it was €4.50 last year and that’s cheaper than many places in the city – and we take in less money from food vendors so that we can cap what they sell their product for.

“When we started off, the festival was all about indie guitar bands but this year we will have DJs, live percussion, saxophones, bongos – a real funky area we wouldn’t have thought about a couple of years ago.