Project Description
In 2013 Carrick-on-Shannon celebrated four hundred years as a town. The council and tourist board decided to take this to opportunity to ‘celebrate, attract and highlight Carrick on Shannon as a place to live, a place to relax in and a place to be attracted to when visiting Ireland.’ An extensive number of festivals and events were planned for the year. It was therefore a requirement to make the town look festive for the year.
Bay Media had supplied their patented lamppost banner system to The Dock art centre in Carrick-on-Shannon a number of years previously and they are still in position today. The festival committee had been impressed by the banners and asked us to supply the same bracket system to go on the existing flag poles at the tourist information centre. When an engineer from Bay Media inspected the flag poles we found them to be of fibreglass construction which, while perfect for flag poles, is not strong enough for the Bay Media patented bracket system. The Carrick tourist office were unhappy with flags they had previously purchased from another supplier as they felt the text was not legible. Bay Media were able to supply, double sided flags of heavier grade material ensuring the flags were legible. This proved to be an ideal, cost effective solution.
With the flag poles sorted out the next difficulty the organisers faced was how to make the narrow main street of the town look festive. The committee asked Bay Media to supply and install bunting and flags through-out the town. While the bunting was straight forward the flags proved to be more awkward. To install the flags on the buildings in the town, holes would have to be drilled in the buildings requiring the building owners permission. There was the potential for damage to the buildings during drilling, some of the buildings were heritage protected structures and so we offered an alternative solution.
Bay Media proposed to use their patented lamppost banners throughout the town and provided a mock-up representation to show what these would look like in place. The cost was broadly similar, the implementation was a lot simpler and as the banners would be in the street the effect would be greater. The tourist board decided to go with the lamppost banners.
At the request of the tourist board the different items went up in a staged format with the new, double sided flags going up first, the lamppost banners a couple of weeks later and the bunting shortly after that. The overall effect was striking. There could be no doubt that Carrick-on-Shannon was celebrating its 400th birthday and celebrating in style. Bay Media also supplied a number of regular flags which were distributed to local hotels, clubs and businesses to be used on existing flag poles.
The quality of the materials used in our products together with the very high quality of installation workmanship ensured everything looked fantastic for the entire duration of the year long festival.
The festival was a great success with attendances at events exceeding expectations, in some cases massively so. The decorations drew praise from all corners with town residents and business owners particularly delighted.