Fixer Fergal relishes his role behind the scenes

City Lives – Bernie Ní Fhlatharta meets new Town Hall theatre manager Fergal McGrath

 There’s very little going on in the arts world in Galway City that Fergal McGrath hasn’t been involved in and now he has just been appointed General Manager of the Town Hall Theatre.

Fergal acknowledges he is a problem solver and that this is what has helped him drive a number of festivals, events and business and community initiatives in the city over the last 21 years, since he first arrived in Galway from his native Tuam, via Dublin, where he studied and worked for a period.

He hardly takes a breath as he gives an overview of what he has worked at or been involved in since his arrival in the city to take over as manager of the Galway Arts Festival.

At that time in 1992, he was a complete unknown in the local arts community. A graduate of UCD, Fergal started out in agriculture

and had been working with the Irish houseplant division at Fyffes Plc. It seemed like a huge jump from flora to fun and frolics!

But Fergal’s business and marketing sense, combined with his no-nonsense approach to people and problems proved to be a winner with the Arts Festival and he oversaw the biggest growth period of an event that has now achieved international acclaim.

In the 10 years he headed up the Arts Festival its turnover quadrupled and the Baboró International Children’s Festival was established.

In the seven years he spent with Fyffes, he had overseen an increasing turnover in the houseplant market. It looked like he just might have the midas touch.

That magic followed him when he took up a position as manager of Druid Theatre Company in 2002 when, in a five-year period, their turnover tripled.

Then he became manager of the Town Hall Theatre for three years while the late Michael Diskin took leave of absence from that job to work on the development of the Lyric Theatre in Belfast.

In the Town Hall, Fergal oversaw a refurbishment of the venue, putting in new seating, and also introduced a one-euro levy on tickets to help pay for the work.

“People didn’t mind paying the levy on their tickets once they saw that the work was already done and that they could now sit on comfortable seats,” he says

“Paid attendances at the theatre increased by 35% tp 135,000 seats within two years.”

Now that he is back in the Town Hall – his brief also includes the running of the Black Box on the Dyke Road – he simply explains that the laws of marketing and business are practically the same no matter what the product is.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.