Co-founder and patron Gary Lightbody along with Oh Yeah’s own Charlotte attended Arts Council NI’s 10 Year Strategic Plan event this week at the MAC Belfast.

We were delighted to see Gary who spoke so well of the importance of the arts here in Northern Ireland.

Gary said, “Picture the best life for yourself and now from that great canvas of your best imaginable life that you’ve painted in your mind, take away music, take away poetry and prose, remove dance and dancing, and theatre and film, get rid of all the great towering works of art carved into sculpture or canvas, erase all the arts from that picture of your perfect life; how close to perfect is it now?”

Fresh off the Music Week Grassroots Venue award win, Charlotte also spoke at the event, which set out the Arts Council goals and ambitions for the next decade.

Charlotte talked of the need for venues like the Oh Yeah centre and the work they do, highlighting Belfast band Beat Up Car’s recent inclusion in the Blue Lights soundtrack. Beat Up Car participated in this year’s Scratch My Progress at Oh Yeah, a programme made possible through arts funding.

Read more about the Arts Council Strategy and the day here.