There is disappointment in Limerick that the city’s Halloween parade has been cancelled this year following a dispute over funding.<\/p>\n
Lumen Street Theatre will not stage the Samhain parade – a popular event which involves around 150 performers and attracts more than 20,000 people to Limerick each year.<\/p>\n
The Limerick-based company confirmed on social media that the parade will not go ahead.<\/p>\n
Lumen said the decision follows a dispute over funding with Limerick City and County Council and concerns over a separate Halloween parade proposed by the local authority.<\/p>\n
The company said it was told in April that the council would not fund the Samhain parade through its Halloween funding, but it was invited to apply to stage a new flagship parade on Halloween night through an open call process.<\/p>\n
Lumen says it was successful, but that the original \u20ac50,000 budget was reduced by \u20ac10,000.<\/p>\n
It is understood that while there was \u20ac50,000 in funding available under the scheme, the panel of three independent experts assessing applications, recommended that Lumen be awarded \u20ac40,000 to stage the parade.<\/p>\n
It is understood this recommendation was made because the street theatre company was not facilitating ancillary events around the parade which were mandatory for the event.<\/p>\n
Lumen said the \u20ac40,000 funding was not commercially viable, as more than \u20ac20,000 would have been required for event management costs.<\/p>\n
The company said it is deeply disappointed that the parade will not take place this year.<\/p>\n
Limerick City and County Council said it made “considerable efforts” to deliver a Halloween procession through an open call process and “explored every opportunity to support its successful delivery”.<\/p>\n
“Our focus now is on delivering a vibrant and varied Halloween programme across the city and county, working with the many community groups, cultural organisations, events organisers, venues and local businesses who contribute so much to Halloween in Limerick,” a spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
The council is due to unveil its full programme of Halloween events at a launch later this week.<\/p>\n
The festival marks the second year of Limerick’s participation in F\u00e1ilte Ireland’s Home of Halloween Pilot Destination Development Scheme, through which Limerick has secured funding of up to \u20ac100,000 annually over three years.<\/p>\n
The programme will feature events and activities across Limerick city and county from 11 October to 1 November.<\/p>\n
The council has already announced a number of events planned for the festival, including a Samhain banquet, a trick or treat trail through the city centre, a Halloween-themed 5km event and performances by street theatre group Morbid and Sons.<\/p>\n
There will also be Halloween events in communities across the county, including an expanded programme in Rathkeale and celebrations in Kilfinane.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There is disappointment in Limerick that the city’s Halloween parade has been cancelled this year following a dispute…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":632532,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[93,61,60],"class_list":["post-632531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=632531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632531\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/632532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=632531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=632531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=632531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}