By Donna Deeney
The organisers of CultureTECH have said the four-day festival went far beyond their wildest expectations. The numbers who attended the plethora of events celebrating the best in digital entertainment, art and games reached levels the organisers didn’t dare dream of, creating a huge boost to the tourism economy of Londonderry. The festival culminated in the announcement that a new digital link has been forged between Derry and London which will see the formation of 100 new companies, establishing Derry as Northern Ireland’s technology hub. Duke Special headlined the events organised on Saturday which saw around 10,000 people pass through the Guildhall Square venue over the course of the day, while hundreds more attended events in the Millennium Forum and the Craft Village. Mark Nagurski, from Digital Derry, said next year’s event will be bigger and better. “We have been completely blown away but the success of the festival and we already have an eye on next year,” he said. “There will be things from this year’s festival that we will want to build on and tweak, however, we plan that next year, the festival will be more entertaining, bigger and better. “This was our first year and it was successful beyond our hopes. What was so impressive is the people who turned up were not all computer geeks as some people might imagine. “We had kids of three and four trying out games, we had kids of 11 or 12 wanting to find out about computer programming but we also had people in their 80s coming to events as well. “One of the more bizarre things for me was seeing Sir Nick Kenyon, director of the Barbican dancing to Japanese Pop Stars at the Nerve Centre but the festival was meant to be fun.” Read more: http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/northern-ireland/culturetech-digital-festival-a-massive-hit-for-derry-16206853.html#ixzz25d9yBK71
