Why We Don't Sell Tickets for The Church

Some people ask us why we don’t sell tickets for Other Voices Church performances. The reasons for this are many and we'll try to explain them as best we can.

As you probably know by now, where we are in Dingle, Cardigan or other lovely places like Derry or Cork, our ‘main stage’ performances are normally filmed in a Church or other wonderful buildings. These spaces create a unique atmosphere mainly because they only hold small audiences, usually under 200 in total. It's in these spaces that we record our episodes that make up our annual television series which is now it's in it's 22 year.

We want everyone to have an opportunity to experience what being at an Other Voices Church recording is like and so we think the fairest way to do that is to give them away. We don't just give them away on socials, we regularly run competitions with local and national radio stations and also local and national print media and sometimes the artists themselves will give them away.

Having said that, Other Voices is not just a music festival, it's primarily a television production and it always has been so it's not really fair to ask you to pay for a show that will have a full camera crew in front of the stage stopping and starting the artists until they get the right camera angle, the right sound, the right light! We're in search of perfection and sometimes perfection can be a little bit disruptive!

We could ask you to pay for tickets and we know that they'd be gone in milliseconds if we did. We're hugely lucky to attract such a mob of faithful fans that we just don't want you to have to pay to see the show. For those of you who don't get your hands on tickets, we always stream live both online to YouTube and to various locations nearby to make sure that no one misses the action. We love the show we make, we're proud of it and we want everyone to see it!

Because our fanbase has grown, we’ve found ways to make sure you can still enjoy music if you’re not lucky enough to get your hand on golden tickets. It’s what we call our Music Trails which happen in both Dingle and Cardigan each year. There we showcase the very best of new talent, the next big thing, the future Church performers, across the weekend of the festivals.

We know you all want to come to see your favourite band playing but the whole ethos of Other Voices is to introduce you to new music. If you happen to see Lankum or Celeste or Hozier or The National playing, great, but that's not the point... we want you to come along no matter who is playing and discover the wealth of relatively unknown talent that we bring with us. In short, if you come for the music, you won't be disappointed, we'll provide you with more music that you can shake a stick at.