First Niagara Bank’s Church Street branch was transformed into a downtown after-hours hot-spot May 10!
Festival sponsor, First Niagara hosted our kick-off event for downtown New Haven businesses and partners to preview Festival 21, hear exciting announcements, and find out ways the Festival can benefit their businesses.
The event was emceed by Comcast/ NBC Connecticut’s Dan Corcoran - not only a TV news personality but also a downtown New Haven resident and millennial Festival fan. He introduced First Niagara’s Jeff Hubbard who announced new promotions of our Headline Concerts on 33 CT Transit buses for 4 weeks through the festival from Madison to Milford and New Haven to North Haven.
Next up, Arts & Ideas’ Development Director Tom Griggs shared exciting news about the “Scottish Invasion” of specialty sponsors this summer accompanying the U.S. Premiere of the new musical Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour from the National Theatre of Scotland. Belhaven Scottish Ale, Laphroaig Scotch Whisky, The Scottish Salmon Company, and Walkers Shortbreads are all providing delicious products during special Festival events. International airline Aer Lingus, bringing service to 20 European destinations from Bradley International Airport starting September 2016, has signed on as a Festival sponsor to assist with roundtrip travel from Glasgow to Harford for the entire Our Ladies cast and crew!
Tom thanked local businesses who are already working with the Festival to co-promote our brands - like Donna Curran of Zinc who promotes special drinks and dishes during the Festival each summer – and welcomed other businesses to think creatively about how we can work together to promote downtown New haven businesses using social media.
Our guests enjoyed delicious Internationally themes treats from Fingers and Forks and mingled to the wonderful jazz music of Neighborhood Music Schools’ Ensemble.
Festival 21 is just weeks away – make sure #yourehere!
