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Category: Events

Dublin’s Wax Museum is back …or maybe not?

18 March 2017Written by Joerg Steegmueller

The Wax Museum Plus is on its way back (or will be back soon), but oddly it won’t be a museum anymore, according to its director. I wasn’t invited to the launch (which happened without a single wax figure!), so I can only go by what others wrote about it, but it seems that the Wax Museum Plus (the plus stands for museum elements that were not wax figures) will re-open its doors again soon at a different location, but still in the City Centre.

The museum originally started in 1983 on Granby Row, near Parnell Square. That building was sold around 2000 and replaced by a hotel. The content of the museum was also sold to a Patrick Dunning and in 2009 the museum re-opened at Foster Place off College Green. In December 2016, it had to move again because the Irish Stock Exchange bought the building and now in Spring 2017 (probably around April) it will re-open in Westmoreland Street in the former Manchester United shop (later the the Lafayette night club).

In his article on The Journal.ie, Daragh Brophy describes an early media tour. He explains that there was no single wax figure in place yet and that the owner and director tried to convince the reporter that this is a museum that is not a museum, but was a museum but is now not a museum any longer. :-O He also mentions that there will be a new features, like an Augmented Reality aspect where your mobile phone will bring some of the figures to live. The article also includes a picture of Bertie Ahern with his wax figure…that doesn’t look like Bertie Ahern at all. :-O

Dublin, Events, Tourism Patrick Dunning, Wax Museum, Wax Museum Plus

Watch out! Sheerios expected to be on a stampede on Thursday night!

25 February 2017Written by Joerg Steegmueller

RTE has reported that a number of Irish record shops will be open from Midnight on Thursday 02 March so that people can by the newest record by Ed Sheeran IMMEDIATELY when it is released.

WTF? It is ridiculous enough that Apple Stores open at midnight when a new iPhone is released considering that you could just stay in bed until the next morning and then leisurely stroll into your Apple Store and buy it at a time when normal people buy stuff. But ok, we know that Apple fan boys and girls need to tell their friends that they were there first.

That “virus” has now spread to Ed Sheeran fans? Apparently his fans are called “Sheerios”. (Not sure though if it is a flock of Sheerios or a herd of Sheerios or a gaggle of Sheerios that will be in Tower Records on Thursday night.)

Sure there is nothing wrong with being a big fan and there is also nothing wrong with shopping at midnight (I have been in Tesco myself around that time when many Tesco’s in Ireland were still open 24hrs.) but the mad run or queueing for something that is NOT scarce and will be plentiful in shops on the next day, just seems odd.

Dublin, Events, Society Ed Sheeran, Sheerios

1916-2016 Easter Rising Commemorations – Was it ok?

08 January 2017Written by Joerg Steegmueller

In 2016 we commemorated the Easter Rising from 1916. Everybody had huge expectations and I think now that we have left 2016 behind, it is time to look back and to assess if the expectations were met or if the whole thing was a big disappointment.

In 2015 I had expected that the following year will be full of funeral re-enactments and other drama and re-lived pain. Sinn Fein were positioning themselves to be in charge of Dublin City (through the position of “Lord” Major) and it seemed that they wanted to run the whole show.

When 2016 arrived it immediately started with a flurry of events. Talks, discussions, tours, music, poetry, theatre etc and it looked as if this would continue throughout the year. The events were mostly of high quality with very dedicated and passionate people running it and it all culminated in a great (RTE-organised) event on Easter Monday that had whole Dublin buzzing with activity. The streets around Stephen’s Green and Merrion Square were packed with people, O’Connell Street was more than full and Smithfield Plaza was as busy as I had seen it never before. There were concerts, historic car exhibitions, historic trade demonstrations, talks, theatre and everything else you can imagine under the umbrella of “cultural commemoration”. It was an outstanding day.It was very surprising that RTE got overall responsibility as the event had nothing directly to do with TV or Radio, but they did a really great job in keeping all together in that one day.

After Easter Monday, however, it all ended very abruptly. The odd exhibition continued and for the rest of the year only a small number of talks popped up but otherwise it was all done and dusted.

This latter part disappointed me! I didn’t think that all was discussed and sorted by Easter Monday, so the rest of the year could easily have had more activities. Before Easter Monday it was nearly a bit much because all was crammed in the first four months of the year and Easter Monday was – as mentioned – a true highlight and couldn’t have been much better.

Luckily NO political party claimed “ownership” of the commemorations and no one party had bigger influence over it than another party. And luckily also, the commemorations were a celebration and not a sad, drab affair.

So all in all, I would give 2016 a 8 out of 10 as far as 1916 commemorations are concerned. I learned a lot, understood a lot better afterwards and was (for the first time since I live in Ireland) impressed by RTE.

Now we have to ask, what is next. The Irish War of Independence (1919-1921) is next, followed by the Irish Civil War (1922-1923) and history get a lot more controversial at that time. But maybe we can find some positive common denominator there as well?

1916, Dublin, Events, Tourism Easter Monday, Easter Rising Commemoration, RTE

Event Marketing the odd way!

23 July 2016Written by Joerg Steegmueller

Publishing the Dublin Event Guide (for Free Events) means that occasionally I experience exceptional behaviour of people. (This is the most politically correct way I can describe it.) And this is a story that emerged from that spare-time activity of mine:

Some weeks ago I saw on Social Media that a sizeable event that is happening this weekend had seemingly some event for media to tell them about the event. I didn’t know any details because no details were shared with me. So I contacted the marketing person to suggest to keep the Dublin Event Guide informed as well.

At first I got a mail telling me that they would happily do that the next time they inform the media, but then the next day I got a phone call from the marketing person in which he firstly “interrogated” me about the relative importance of the Dublin Event Guide for his event and after declaring that he will only invite real journalists (he measures that through membership in the Journalist Union NUJ) he wanted to start an argument about who would qualify to be informed and who wouldn’t.

This is just silly!! Every organiser can invite or not invite whoever they want to whatever informational event they run or not. But if there are people offering to spread the word about your event, it is just nonsensical to try to start an argument about their importance or not.

When I tried to say that him and after repeated interruptions, he said in a huff that he would send on any press releases but that he would not provide any other information. WTF!? Is he trying trying to market an event or not? Needless to say that no Press Release was ever sent to me.

That is Event Marketing the odd way!! ;-)

Events, Odd

Busking under threat! City Councillors are determined to make Dublin boring

10 July 2016Written by Joerg Steegmueller

For a number of years, the Dublin City Councillors are trying to re-organise the busking in the city and they are making a mess of it.

The problem is that the shops in the areas where busking makes sense don’t like buskers. They make noise and block the street, Busking at night also disturbs people’s sleep (more in Temple Bar than in Grafton Street where nobody lives). And then there are some really really bad buskers who shouldn’t be on the street at all.

So, it is totally accepted that a bit of structure needs to be injected. But the Councillors went over the top. They introduced the requirement for buskers to have a license that they need to buy from Dublin City and they defined the amount of noise buskers are allowed to make (but that is difficult to measure) and they created busking free zones and defined how far buskers should be from each other and for how long they are allowed to sing and how often they are allowed to repeat their songs. They even considered introducing the requirement of auditions for buskers!!! Mad!!

There was a bit of a light at the end of the tunnel! The previous busking laws were time limited to be reviewed some while later. This some while later has come now and with a LOT of delays finally the councillors discussed busking again and…made things worse again.

Because the noise measurement doesn’t work, now they have forbidden the use of backing tracks!!

Not too long ago, I saw a busker who played something like a pan flute. He wasn’t one of the Mexican flute player that can be found all over the world who mainly sell their CDs, but it was a guy whose hand was severely disabled. He could hold the pan flute but wouldn’t have been able to play any other instrument. With the new rules, he is out! Because pan flute without any backing track just doesn’t work.

A few years ago I heard two guys in Grafton Street who were amazing. They were the type of power or pop violinists that you see sometimes. Extremely talented, playing the violin like gods but they couldn’t do their gig without an orchestra. Obviously they didn’t bring their orchestra but had a backing track. You won’t see anything like that in Dublin anymore! …thanks to our City Councillors!

But it gets worse! Some of them even want to forbid the use of amplifiers. I am totally ok with a limitation of the amplifier use. Otherwise we will have huge PAs at some stage in Grafton Street and Temple Bar, but there are small 5-15W amps that help a bass player (for example) just to be heard without having to buy a new instrument. They don’t really make noise, they just allow the use of a normally amplified instrument in a more acoustic environment.

Dublin has a great musical tradition and a huge musical talent in our midst, but we (at least _I_) also like hearing “travelling musicians” and there HAS to be a way to use soft and careful limitations to improve the situation for ALL sides instead of forbidding everything!! City Councillors are meant to improve things in our City not destroy culture and variety.

Dublin, Dublin City Council, Events, Tourism Backing Tracks, Busking, Dublin City Councillors