goNORTH 2012 Done And Dusted!
Fri 22 Jun 2012 / News
Team goNORTH – a crack unit of committed individuals undertook to deliver a programme more ambitious than ever before With record attendance in its 12 year history, the pressure was on to ensure all 700 plus delegates had a fantastic couple of days, met the industry folk they wanted to meet and came out of sessions feeling they were worthwhile.
During the day the programme of panels and workshops were well attended beginning and ending with ferocious networking and discussion between delegates The hub of the festival was definitely the Mercure Hotel where most of this activity took place and boy, was it busy This was partly due to our decision to bring the screening programme this year into the fold We purpose converted a room in the basement of the hotel into a cinema so that delegates didn’t have to go far to take in a film This worked really well!
In the evenings the showcase schedule ran like clockwork allowing audiences to move between venues and take in as many bands as they possible could Inverness lends itself so well to this with venues being so close together The city was buzzing and vibrant for two full days.
The Mystery Tour on day one, despite the weather, found tour guide Olaf Furniss with near to a hundred merry followers ready for some colourful storytelling First stop at the Ironworks, a glass of bubbly in hand, allowed delegates to dry off a bit and watch a film from our Radio goNORTH producer training project Swiftly followed by a live radio drama performance from HI Wireless – a new drama writing project ScreenHI is launching this year. Soon the tour was off again hot-footing it along to the Townhouse where the tour finished with the lilting voice of Miss Irenie Rose.
On day two, friend of the festival Billy Boyd and band Beecake treated us to a semi acoustic session in the Arts Bar early on in the evening and once the final showcases were over the festival was played out at the Aftershow Party by Stanley Odd and a dj set from Mark Jones – a rare night so it was!
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