The Department of Culture, Communications and Sport has announced a call for a researcher to examine the value of Ireland’s night time economy. This development represents an important opportunity to ground future policy in robust evidence and measurable delivery capacity.

At a time when Ireland continues to produce world class artistic talent, the operational ecosystem that enables live performance requires renewed attention. Post pandemic recovery has not simply been a matter of audience return, it has involved structural shifts in promoter capacity, crew availability, compliance burden and regional delivery sustainability.

Research into the value of the night time economy must therefore extend beyond headline economic impact figures. A comprehensive assessment should consider delivery infrastructure, geographic spread, repeatability of programming and the cumulative pressures affecting small and medium sized towns in particular.
During the recent Joint Committee on Arts, Media, Communications, Culture and Sport discussion on Developing Ireland’s Live Music Industry, the Irish Music Rights Organisation was asked to provide a comprehensive list of venues nationwide. This dataset will be an important component in understanding the true scale, distribution and operational capacity of Ireland’s live music infrastructure. Accurate venue mapping is essential to any meaningful evaluation of the night time economy.

The effectiveness of existing supports, including Night Time Economy initiatives and Purple Flag programmes, should also be assessed against measurable outcomes. Policy ambition must be matched by operational enablement at local authority level and by a regulatory environment that supports safe, compliant and repeatable event delivery.

The Event Industry Association of Ireland has consistently stated that live music policy cannot succeed without a safe, resourced, locally enabled and repeatable events delivery system. Evidence led policy must now translate into coordinated national strategy, strengthened local implementation and improved cross agency alignment.
This research call provides a timely opportunity to ensure that Ireland’s night time economy is understood not only as cultural expression but as a structured delivery system requiring governance, data and infrastructure.

EIAI encourages researchers, policymakers and industry stakeholders to engage constructively in this process to ensure that the findings reflect the realities of delivery on the ground across Ireland’s events industry.