Art In The Open 2020

Current situation

We are monitoring the COVID 19 emergency to see what format in which we will be able to run our popular festival this summer. Because of its wide appeal, with several international workshop artists and many other participants hoping to travel to Ireland, we know the advertised format for Art in the Open will inevitably be badly affected.

Our plans for providing coach travel, evening gatherings, our gala exhibition and award ceremony and even our outdoor workshops look like being severely compromised by the recommendations around social gathering arising from the current health crisis.

Furthermore, we have been advised that some of our funding has had to be diverted to fund the local government COVID 19 response and of course, our business sponsors have all been badly hit, too.

Proposed festival

Restrictions permitting, we are still hopeful to run a scaled-down event.

The programme of 2020 festival that we hope to run will be made available in the coming days as details of the restrictions become known and we can develop a programme of events.

It is likely to be a series of stand-alone daily paint-outs, held entirely in the open air, with smaller prizes awarded at the end of each day.

This was largely the formula for the success of the original festival in 2008 and we feel it will never be more important to provide some fun and new creative challenges than this year.

If it is feasible, we would love to welcome as many of you who can join us at the end of July, beginning of August.

However, because some of you have health concerns or have travel and accommodation arrangements, we have a responsibility to you to make a call on this now.