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K-FEST 2K19
May 31, 2019 - June 2, 2019
K-FEST 2K19, a three-day festival that celebrates emerging artists and musicians, returns May 31st through June 2nd with an all-new roster of events, featuring a gallery trail of over 100 visual artists, 30 live bands, slam poets, spoken word artists, theatre performers, buskers, dancers, street entertainment, and a myriad of family activities. Ninety-five percent of the nearly 80 events at K-FEST are offered at no or low cost to the public.
In its seventh consecutive year, K-FEST will once again take over the town of Killorglin, exhibiting approximately 100 visual artists across all disciplines, including paint, print, sculpture, performance, textiles, fashion, graphic design, photography, film, and audio-visual. Selected artists show their work in curated, bespoke pop-up galleries throughout the town’s disused commercial and private spaces. Since 2013, K-Fest has housed over 600 visual artists and approximately 3,000 original works of art. With an attendance of more than 10,000 over the June Bank Holiday weekend, K-FEST affords new and emerging artists from Ireland and beyond the ability to showcase their work to a diverse audience, providing opportunities for patronage, partnerships, and community building with fellow artists and local residents.
In 2018, K-FEST saw a performance piece win the Screaming Pope Prize, and generally had more performance art on exhibit, moving K-FEST into the realm of a truly multi-discipline arts festival. “I hope we continue to see as much varied work in 2019, as each work of art elicits a different experience and drives interactions between artists and attendees that really heighten the sense of community and inclusivity during the weekend,” explained Artistic Director Neil Browne. “We may even see a new gallery or two pop up in 2019, which always gives the festival — and the works on display — a new flavour.”
The arts strand will once again include a seminar by Visual Artists Ireland and artist-led workshops open to the public throughout the weekend.
The festival opens with “The Poetry of Women” Friday night, in which audience members are invited to recite from verses about our favourite vices. Slam poets, burlesque dancers, writing workshops and local filmmakers will also grace our pop-up venues around town.
K-FEST looks forward to packing our numerous pub spaces that morph into cutting-edge music venues at night with some Ireland’s best up-and-coming bands, DJs and musicians. A few highlights include Just Mustard, Pillow Queens, Josh Gray and Molly Sterling, but the full line-up can be found on www.kfest.ie/music. As well as bands from punk to folk to electronic, K-FEST also boasts a classical programme each year and Breakout, a young DJ/Producer competition, and also a series of Café Sessions to encourage younger musicians to perform live to their peers.
K-FEST’s K-Kids programme this year is all about the bubbles and will include arts and crafts workshops, balloon modeling school, book reading, fairy trail, plus many other activities throughout the weekend.
Under our Street strand, we expect a more robust busking competition, along with a six-person parkour group from Northern Ireland called The Playground, which will host numerous workshops for all ages over the weekend, as well as a number of performances.
New this year is a Dance strand, which will include a special performance by former local Jade O’Connor, as well as a community-based performance by Céilí Afro Dabke.
This, of course, is only a sampling of the 2K19 festival. For more information about K-FEST, visit www.kfest.ie . #iamkfest #kfest2k19 #killorglinisthecanvas
K-FEST, a dynamic arts festival with an emphasis on emerging artists, uses unoccupied spaces in Killorglin, Co. Kerry, transforming vacant retail outlets, deserted buildings, and even domestic homes into curated bespoke pop-up galleries and venues. Over the course of the June Bank Holiday weekend, K-FEST hosts more than 60 events in addition to a gallery trail, including live music performances by dozens of bands and musicians, as well as spoken word, drama, comedy, short films, street entertainment, and activities for kids and families, all culminating with the Screaming Pope Prize ceremony, in which the festival awards a single outstanding work of visual art.
K-FEST acknowledges the financial support of Kerry County Council, the Arts Council, Carlsberg, Fáilte Ireland, FEXCO, Tweak, IMRO and many other generous sponsors, patrons, and donors in making our festival possible.
