Long-running electronic music festival set to end

An electronic music festival, which is billed as the island of Ireland's longest running event of its kind, is set to end after almost 25 years, organisers have said.

Celtronic, which was started by two "very skint" friends in Londonderry in early 2001, has attracted some of the biggest DJs from all over the world and played to thousands of fans over the years.

Organiser Gareth Stewart said they "want to end on a high and on their own terms" after "many happy memories running the event".

Gareth said it has been a privilege to put on shows in his home city and also give local people an opportunity to perform and "prove that you can be from Derry and have a career in electronic music".

"When most festivals end it's usually because they have gone bankrupt or something terrible has happened, but for us it's simply the right time," Gareth told BBC News NI.

"We have invited everyone we wanted to come to Derry and have played almost every venue that we wanted to."

Looking back over nearly a quarter of a century of events, Gareth said some of his fondest memories were getting some huge names from across the globe to come and play in Derry.

He said getting stand out names like French music producer and DJ Laurent Garnier, England's Dave Clarke and even American musician and songwriter Nile Rodgers from Chic to perform twice, is still a 'pinch yourself moment'.

He said that none of this would have been possible without crews, friends and the generations of dancers that continued to flock to their dancefloors.

The first Celtronic Festival, Gareth said, started as "a wild notion" from very humble beginnings.

"I essentially met a guy called Tony Talbot and we were just these two skint young fellas from Shantallow with dreams," he said.

"We always wanted to go to this amazing festival called Sónar in Barcelona, but could never afford the tickets - there wasn't any cheap flights like there is nowadays.

"I asked him how would we go about doing our own version of that festival right here in Derry, so we applied for funding and - somehow - were successful and we just essentially booked our dream DJs, our dream line up."

Gareth said they really "did not have too much of a plan" but somehow they pulled it off and nearly 25 years later the festival has just kept growing and growing.

"We had no intention of where we were going or what we were planning, just do it once and hope for the best," he said.

"Back then it was an eight day and eight night festival - we had a lot more stamina than we do now."

Gareth said that when they started Celtronic a real aim was to be able to provide a platform for local talent, alongside international talent, to flourish and grow.

"We essentially wanted to reverse a trend of always having to import talent, when we wanted to start exporting it," he said.

"There are now people from this part of the world being able to develop careers in the electronic music industry.

"One of the most successful of those is a young DJ called Orlagh Dooley (aka Or:la) from Prehen who is playing all the best clubs and festivals all over the world.

"People like that send a signal to young kids coming up that you can be from Derry and have a career in electronic music, playing clubs in Ibiza or London, wherever."