It’s that time of year again; the Christmas decorations go up and the Continental market comes to Belfast. It’s one of the many examples of German-themed Christmas markets that are replicated all over the UK, but how authentic is it, and why are we are we so obsessed with the old-style version of Christmas?
BY KATHLEEN PEDERSEN Continue reading
Belfast City Council and the Northern Ireland Tourist Board contributed £870,000 to bring the EMAs to Belfast on 5 November. An event like this has a lot of power behind it and with 1.2 billion viewers tuning in all over the world, all eyes were on Belfast.
BY PRIYA BIRING Continue reading
The MTV EMAs were incredible. Whether you liked the music, layout or even the show itself, it’s obvious there was a lot of effort to make Belfast look as great as possible. But what would the average tourist be met with, stumbling into some bar offering live music? Well, if it’s anything like the music heard at Belfast Calling, there would be no doubt that they would be blown away.
BY LEE BRADY Continue reading
Conducting a little experiment in the run-up to the MTV EMAs in Belfast, I asked five people if they were aware it was Belfast Music Week – not the greatest survey in the world, but the results may still be relevant nonetheless. Of the five, only one had actually heard of the event. The remaining four gave responses ranging from, “Well, that’s not very original,” to an enthusiastic, “Well, that’s good! Maybe some good bands will play.”
BY LEE BRADY Continue reading
The hype had been building for weeks in the lead up to the biggest event that Belfast has ever hosted; the MTV EMAs. A special show featuring Snow Patrol, Jason Derulo and Boyce Avenue outside City Hall took place at the same time as the award ceremony hosted in the Odyssey.
BY CONOR KERR Continue reading
Phone lines at Queen’s crashed on Thursday due the volume of calls Admissions received about A-level results. According to member of staff all departments were affected. Attempts to contact different areas of the university were met with engaged tones.
BY BEN FINCH
Empty shops are sad places; shutters permanently down, no customers and the shelves free of stock. They are cold, lifeless, depressing. They are signs of lost hopes and dreams, of economic hardship. With the help of Out of Place and The Streetwise Samba Band, Escape Act changed all this on Saturday for the release of their second album, Balance, turning an empty storefront in Belfast’s Cornmarket into a place more exciting than the Apple Store on iPhone release day.
BY BEN FINCH