It’s fair to say that Pete O’Neill, Director and founder of the Imagine! Festival of Ideas and Politics, probably never set out to run the Belfast festival virtually. Since 2015, from Queen’s University in the south of the city to Duncairn Gardens in the north, the week-long schedule has stretched across the city, encouraging debate and voter registration, particularly from people not typically engaged in politics.

When the COVID-19 pandemic emerged last year, however, Peter and his team of volunteers had to pivot fast. In March 2020, during the first UK lockdown, they ran Northern Ireland’s first online festival. Twelve months later, continued social restrictions haven’t stopped the festival from imagining Belfast’s future.

Between 22-28 March, 115 events will be broadcast online from the Imagine Festival website. Under the “The State of Us” theme, key questions will focus on what is this new world we live in, and how can we organise it better. Highlights include an interview with Noam Chomsky, reflecting on the future of democracy. In 2031, author Neil Hegarty will consider how events on the island of Ireland will unfold in the wake of Brexit, Covid, and looming climate breakdown. And Claire Fox, Director of the Academy of Ideas, will discuss Cancelling Culture and the Right to Be Offensive.

Northern Slant will be back too. Our Post-Pandemic NI: Should I Stay or Should I Go? discussion brings political, business and community experts together to consider how a post-pandemic NI can be a more attractive and inclusive place for everyone.

I spoke to Peter to hear how he and his team reimagined the festival online, what we can expect this year, and what the future of the festival looks like.

Kevin Cooper © Photoline: Peter O’Neill, Festival Director, speaking at the launch of Imagine Belfast Festival 2019.

How have you managed to shift the entire festival online?

At this point in the current Covid pandemic we have to organise a virtual festival however we do miss the audience interaction at physical events which has always been a feature at our previous festivals. 

But given last year’s events, we are pretty experienced in running online events with our key partner Accidental Theatre. There are, of course, some advantages as going online does allow you to book speakers that you would never be able to get normally such as Noam Chomsky, for example, who wouldn’t be able to travel to Belfast. It’s also great to be able to engage with disabled audience members and others who could have never been able to physically attend our venues previously.

This year we expect to livestream most of our 115 online events compared to the pre-records we generally organised in the past so that does present some technical issues to keep us on our toes!

It’s also worth noting that, as well as our local audiences, we now have a massive international reach which we might not have been able to have if we were limited to a physical festival. This year we expect a quarter of our audience to come from outside Europe which will allow Belfast to be part of a genuinely global conversation on new ideas and politics.

The festival is running a public engagement campaign this year. A few years ago you ran the alternative manifesto campaign. This time you’re asking what people would like to see changed as a result of the pandemic. What three things would you like to change to Build Back Better?

That was a great campaign and a lot of fun! We think an important part of the festival is to discuss civic activism and find ways of encouraging people to become more politically and culturally active through public participation projects where people can propose the changes they would like to see in their lives. This year, we therefore have developed a project called “Build Belfast Back Better” in which the public is invited to pitch up to three ideas to improve public policy in this strange new world we now find ourselves in. 

We are going to collate the ideas, produce a citizen’s manifesto and see if we can stimulate some further discussion on how we can re-imagine Belfast with citizens at the centre of it. Already we have received some fascinating proposals, so I’ll leave it up to your readers to come up with the creative ideas that we so badly need at this time in our history! Feel free to complete the short form on this link. 

Tell us about some of the events you’re most looking forward to at this year’s festival.

I’m always a bit reticent to highlight any events from our extensive 115 offerings as they are all great!  However, this year we have lots of headliners such as Noam Chomsky, Bonnie Greer, Gavin Esler, Paul Mason, Sinead Gleeson, Claire Fox, Tim McGarry and of course your own event! These high-profile speakers fill in gaps from our public submission process when we ask people to run their own events, but also bring people to the website and get them to check out the full programme

But we also have less well-known speakers and performers such as Stephen Pritchard talking about cultural democracy; the rising comedy star, Tom Mayhew; BBC Radio 6 poet in residence, Murray Lachlan Young; local author Jan Carson and events with young people such as the Secondary School Students’ Union looking at the impact of COVID-19 on young people’s mental health. We’ve also commissioned a number of women artists to deliver two Arts Council funded special festival projects.

So there’s something for everyone in our festival and we look forward to engaging with your readers at https://imaginebelfast.com.

What does the future of the Imagine festival look like?

Every year it’s a struggle to find sufficient funds to keep the festival going. We used to run Belfast Comedy Festival for six years but gave up due to a lack of funding support. For the Imagine! Festival we have attracted some project funding this year but, unlike other large festivals, we don’t receive core support from the major funders such as Belfast City Council or Tourism Ireland. We rely instead on pots of money from universities, trusts and donations but we have low admin costs and no offices or staff so we’re cheap to run!

Nevertheless, the festival keeps exceeding its targets and in our seventh year we have arguably the most expansive and dynamic programme of events in our history with more event partners such as Northern Slant on board. This year we have also been very ambitious by launching a competition for a special bursary of £3,000, funded by the Arts Council, which we hope to support new work or performances on political art for next year.

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Also published on Medium.