Call for Applications: Culture Night Late Scheme (Ireland)

Events should attract a large, diverse audience and offer audiences a greater diversity in their Culture Night experience late into the night.

Categories

• Culture Night Late Flagship Events: will support innovative, large-scale, flagship late-night events, beginning after 9pm, with an audience capacity of over 500 people. The lead applicant must be either a local authority arts office, arts centre, arts organisation, arts festival or production company.
• Culture Night Late Events: will support innovative late-night events for a unique audience experience, beginning after 9pm, with an audience capacity of over 200 people. The lead applicant must be either a local authority arts office, arts centre, arts organisation, arts festival or production company.

Priorities

• The Arts Council has identified the following as strategic priorities for support through this award:
  • Public space: the importance of accessible shared places and spaces and how these are or can be used for the wider engagement of the public through the arts – e.g. outdoor spaces (parks, streets, town squares) and public buildings/spaces not ordinarily used for the arts with due consideration for permissions and noise curfews as they apply locally
  • Artistic excellence: high-quality, ambitious and collaborative approach for excellent arts activities in any or multiple artforms or practices
  • Innovative and unique events: testing new ground and exploring multidisciplinary arts activities across many artforms
  • Younger audiences: proposals that demonstrate (through a track record) that the applicant and partners involved have the capacity to deliver a high-quality artistic project that will be relevant and engaging for younger audiences (18–24 years)
  • Partnership: i.e. identifying relevant arts and public partners that can support the delivery of a Culture Night Late event
  • Public engagement and inclusion: i.e. have core considerations around access, equality, diversity and inclusion as per the Arts Council’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion policy
  • Supporting artists: ensuring best practice in payment of artists as per Paying the Artist policy and ensuring due consideration is given to working with artists with disabilities
  • Financial support: the level of cash and/or in-kind investment by the supporting partner(s). This must be a minimum of 25% of the event’s total costs
  • Open and free to the public: events must be free to the public, with ticketing or prebooking arrangements in place as appropriate
  • Commencing at 9.00pm: or later and continuing late into the night with due consideration for licensed opening hours, permissions, noise curfews, etc. as they apply locally.

Funding Information

• This award has two strands for events that will take place on Culture Night:
  • Culture Night Late: innovative, large-scale, flagship late-night events: The maximum you can apply for is €16,500
  • Culture Night Late events: innovative late-night events for a unique audience: The maximum you can apply for is €5,000–€8,000 experience

Eligibility Criteria

• The award is open to local authority arts offices (including Ealaín na Gaeltachta), arts festivals, arts centres, production companies and arts organisations only to create a Culture Night Late event in a public space or place.
• Lead applicants must be either:
  • A local authority arts office in partnership with one or more arts centre/arts organisations/arts festival/producer/curator/production company, or
  • An arts centre/arts organisation/arts festival/production company in partnership with a local authority arts office and other arts partners/artists.
  • In partnerships where more than one applicant qualifies to be lead applicant, the identification of the lead applicant is at the discretion of the partners.
  • All applications must involve a local authority Arts Office, who are the local coordinators of Culture Night. Other potential partners include arts centres, arts organisations, arts festivals, artists, non arts  groups/organisations/production companies /agencies etc.
  • Non-arts organisations could be considered partners in a project on condition that the project involves two or more arts partners.
  • The applicant is the organisation that will receive any grant offered and which will be required to accept the terms and conditions of the grant.
  • The grant will be paid only into a bank account held in the name of the lead applicant.
  • All documentation provided must be in the name of the lead applicant.

Ineligibility Criteria

• This scheme is only open to local authority arts offices or arts centres/arts organisations/arts festivals/production companies in the Republic of Ireland, including Ealaín na Gaeltachta.
• Applications must be made in partnership and involve a local authority arts office either as lead applicant or project partner.
• An organisation or individual who does not fit into this category is not eligible to apply as lead applicant.

For more information, visit The Arts Council.