Connecting 7up, Ash & The Republic of Loose for St. Patrick's Day

by Sarai Fernandez on March 3rd, 2010

We’re pretty sure you all have heard about  7Up Free ”Bring them back for the Craic” competition, which will gather back in Dublin a group of 7 irish friends for St.Patrick’s day. 7 groups of friends have been pre-selected and they’re now facing a weekly challenge to gain points. You can vote for one of them and that way y0u’ll have the chance to win tickets to the exclusive party that 7Up Free is hosting on March 20th to celebrate the winners.

Check out the last news about the contest in the 7Up Bring Them Back For The Craic  Facebook Page.

At Connector we have 3 pairs of tickets to give away for this invitation only gig, which will be headlined by Ash and the excellent Republic of Loose playing support.

If you want to be one of the lucky winners just  leave us a comment below or in our Facebook Group tell us: how would you like to drink your 7Up? The deadline for participating is March 15th, so hurry up!

Tradfest connects you with Irish culture

by Sarai Fernandez on January 25th, 2010

One year more Tradfest is taking over the Temple Bar streets’ to bring the best of Irish tradition to the city centre. The fifth edition of this festival, organised by TASCQ (Traders in the Area Supporting the Cultural Quarter Limited), will run from 27th to 31st of January.

During 5 days Temple Bar will be full of activities suitable for all publics and some of them will be free! Tere will be workshops, concerts, film screenings, a photo exhibition and even a market.  But the most of the activities will be concerts, as this is originally a music festival, where the irish traditional music is the star.

Here it is a little advance… The Kilfenora Céilí Band, who performed at the launch of the Tradfest days ago at The Clarence Hotel.

Kasabian connect @ TheChurch.ie

by Conor on October 18th, 2009

Here is a short video I made showing the great atmosphere when Kasabian played The Church recently for Arthur’s Day.  They certainly rocked the altar !

Thanks to Niall Whittle for doing the editing on this clip & thechurch.ie for the tickets we got to give away.

Connect with the Nokia N86

by Conor on October 11th, 2009

Nokia Ireland kindly sponsored a new phone for Connector to mobile blog during the Guinness Arthur’s Day celebration.  So I am the proud owner of a new Nokia N86 pictured above.  The phone is a nice sleek white design with a chrome casing which gives it a high quality feel when opening & closing etc.

The 8MP camera is amazing and the quality of the QIK.com mobile videos I have done are also really strong as you can see from the interview with Robotnik below.  A new feature I like is the ability to use standard headphones for listening to music fromthe Nokia Music Store.

Overall it is a very nice Nokia phone with all the usual benefits and works very well with Ovi.com for synching numbers etc.  Thanks to Anthony Lawless from Nokia for sorting this out for me.

Connect with O Emperor

by connector on October 3rd, 2009

I have been listening to the new debut single from Waterford band called O Emperor & the song is called ‘Po’. It is really great and they come very highly recommended & I hope to see them soon, maybe at HWCH.

The band were winners of the National Student Music Awards in 2007 and in 2008. Were amongst the finalists of the Williamsburg Live Song Contest in New York City.  Well done lads !!

Connecting 48 hour filmmakers

by Conor on October 2nd, 2009

Do you have a burning desire to create a film? How about a burning desire to create one in 48hours?  This weekend Studio Rua  and Crewger.ie are running a 48hour film competition in conjunction with the Darklight Film festival, and we want you to join us!

The rules are simple, make a film within 48 hours, but I think that might have been obvious… Its a great opportunity for groups of film makers to really push themselves as teams and individuals, go through the whole film making process and learn some amazing things along the way. There are some great prizes, and the judges will be a line up of Irish film celebrities featuring Kirsten Sheridan, Lenny Abrahamson , and Vanessa Gildea

Time is running out though, so if your interested send an email to info_at_studiorua_dot_ie. The closing date for registration has already passed, but there’s a few spot left, first come first serve!

The Competition takes place this weekend, from 10:00 on saturday morning until 10:00 on monday morning and there is a registration fee of €50.

Connector @ Arthurs Day !!

by Conor on September 25th, 2009

What a cracking night out !!  I will post more photos & videos asap but for now please check out my Facebook profile, Qik mobile videos & my Twitter account for more details.

Kicking off at the Wilson Hartnell PR offices at 5pm and lasting till midnight, this was one great night out !  From WHPR we were brought by cab to a mystery location which turned out to be The Bank on Dame Street.

Jamie Callum performed a good set and I got a meet a few other Guinness guests for some complimentary pints of

Guinness & platters of food. The 17.59 toast was cool & televised live around the world from the Guinness Storehouse.  Thanks to Kate from WHPR & Dan from the  Diageo team for looking after us so well & Caroline for keeping me so entertained with her banter between the music acts !

Then it was down to TheChurch.ie to meet up with the rest of the gang for Kasabian live.  Great atmosphere and a great show with me filming with my mobile and camera almost on top of the bar.  Cheers also to Rob Cumiskey for live reporting from The Church all evening.  Finally, thanks to all who expressed interest in the ticket giveaway and sorry we could not get more people in !

A night to remember for all concerned & this was one seriously great global marketing initiative  so congrats to all concerned …  and of course … Happy Arthur’s Day !

These mobile videos were made with the new Nokia N86 & pictured kindly taken by John Lowes.

Twestival & connector on RTE News

by Conor on September 15th, 2009

I was at the Dublin Twestival on Thursday night in Krystle Nightclub which was a fundraiser for Barnados.  As you may know I use Twitter under the profile  connector_ie & it was good to meet some old friends and make some new ones.

I did not stay too late but seemed much quieter than the last event – the highlight was a performance by Karl Spain.

I was interviewed by RTE news while there and some of my comments are included in the video below – thanks to Gene Murphy for proposing me for interview on RTE Network 2 News @ 11pm.  Apologies for the poor quality of the video and the original is here on RTE.ie

Festival Connections @ Electric Picnic

by Conor on September 8th, 2009

At about 10.30 on Friday morning I arrived down @ the Electric Picnic and started bumping into friends as early as the car park.  This year which was my second visit having my debut last summer & I could find my way around much better even though there were no maps to be found any where.  And timetables were fairly thin on the ground too making meeting people the usual nightmare !  It is only a matter of time when a ‘Friend Finder’ app is available from the likes of Locle and promoted on Ovi.com by my kind hosts Nokia (Thanks Aoife !!)  .. fingers crossed !

I got to see parts of a good few shows and particularly liked Orbital, Florence & the machine, 2 many DJs, RSAG & the Donal Dineen Band @ Body & Soul.  As usual the Arcadia dance factory was an awesome feast for the eyes & ears.

Greetings to fellow festival friends Mouna (thanks for the lift!), Alvin, Lisa, Leonard, Marius, Aiden, Eighty Twenty’s Dave, Cara, &,  Michelle & Graham; Brian & Conor from Krystle, Nokia’s Aoife, Sian, Ailbhe & Niamh … RaboDirect’s Aoife, Aisling, Mark, Martin & Caoimhe, Johnny, Victor, Anne, Yvonne, Paddy, Jimmy, Stephen, Celia & Charlie’s sista Carrie !  Hope to see you all next year & maybe may even organise a Connector meetup down there … the most famous person I ’spoke to’ was Louis Walsh& rumour has it he is coming to Connector Music event next week @ The Pod (Wed 16th Sept) !

Overall it was a great weekend & a nice break from the city & a comfortable bed … but I suppose I am at the stage of 2009 where I need some sun this year, not more mud ! Although the weather overall was cloudy, windy & very showery on Sunday @ lunchtime, it could have been a lot worse !!

Below are a couple of night shots of two sponsored tents with Nokia in Blue and Bacardi in red with their people partying below the full moon !

Guinness 250 Arthur's Day connections

by Conor on September 8th, 2009

With just seventeen days to go until the Arthur’s Day celebrations begin in Dublin on the 24th of September, GUINNESS is today revealing the latest impressive line-up of artists, A-list presenters and international broadcast partners taking part, as the countdown begins to the global festivities.

This is a truly historic party in Dublin and one our intrepid Connector will be checking out & blogging from so please watch this space & check out www.guinness.com

Joining previously announced artists Sir Tom Jones, Estelle, Sugababes and Kasabian at the Dublin Arthur’s Day celebrations are Roots Manuva, Paolo Nutini, The Magic Numbers, OK Go and White Belt Yellow Tag, along with some of the best live acts in Ireland today including The High Kings, Jerry Fish and the Mudbug Club, General Fiasco, Spring Break, David Kitt, and Oppenheimer.

Around the world amazing talent will perform at Arthur’s Day events including Sean Paul as headlining act at the live show in Lagos, Nigeria and The Black Eyed Peas performing at celebrations in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. These remarkable global events will see over 60 artists performing more than 60 hours of live music in just one day at events in cities around the world

Hosting the event in Dublin will be Cat Deeley and Ronan Keating who will take to the stage in the St. James’s Gate Brewery, and will be joined by Colin Murray, Michelle De Swarte and Michelle Doherty who will be presenting live from the four studio venues. The Arthur’s Day celebrations will be beamed across the globe from Ireland, UK, US and Africa via broadcast partners TV3, SKY, ITV2 and DirecTV

Publicans and their customers all across the country will be joining in the Arthur’s Day celebrations by raising a GUINNESS to Arthur and witnessing the live music events which will be broadcast live into pubs and bars on the night via an exclusive channel on the Sky TV platform.

The Arthur’s Day celebrations, to mark 250 years since Arthur Guinness signed the 9,000 year lease on the St James’s Gate Brewery in Dublin, will begin in the Irish capital at 17:59 local time with a toast to Arthur and carry on around the world in Lagos, Kuala Lumpur and New York.

In Dublin, 33 events will take place simultaneously, including a major performance at the St James’s Gate Brewery and four studio venues as well as 28 intimate gigs at pubs around Dublin hosting local acts and surprise guest artists from the A-list line-up. The full line-up for Dublin studio venues and local acts for pub venues has also been announced today.*

New artists announced today are: Born Blonde, Concerto for Constantine, David Kitt, Fiona Melady, Fionn Regan, General Fiasco, Jerry Fish and the Mudbug Club, Leopold, Lumiere, OK Go, Oppenheimer, Paolo Nutini, Roots Manuva, Sean Paul, Sharon Shannon, Spring Break, The Coronas, The High Kings, The Infomatics, The Magic Numbers and White Belt Yellow Tag.

As part of the Arthur’s Day celebrations The Guinness & Co. has pledged to donate €6 million to the Arthur Guinness Fund which will be active from September 2009. Arthur Guinness and his family were responsible for some of the most well known acts of philanthropy in Ireland and to honour and continue this legacy we are establishing this fund with the goal of enabling and empowering individuals with skills and opportunities to deliver a measured benefit to their communities.

For more information on the GUINNESS 250 celebrations please visit www.guinness.com