River Runs Round, the newly-founded, artist-led festival for music and arts in Cork City, is releasing a new series of performances recorded behind the scenes of the festival’s inaugural 2023 edition, directed by Jordan Gough and produced by the festival team of Matthew Xavier Corrigan and Peter O’Sullivan.

Live at River Runs Round takes place in the liminal spaces of the festival’s venues before the doors open – in quiet corners of pubs or green rooms with windows open to the city, providing a unique platform for artists to share stripped-back versions of their work. The performances are enhanced by Gough’s documentary style of filmmaking; pulling out digicam clips of the later performances, looking out into the city, even capturing a creamy Beamy being passed to an artist as the take wraps up.

The series continues in the coming weeks with videos recorded with poet Jake M. M. Griffin, and the Sunwell Tapes collective. The series showcases River Runs Round’s community-focused, artist-led, cross-disiplinary ethos, by giving artists and local venues a spotlight for new material and works in progress.

About River Runs Round

River Runs Round (https://riverrunsround.com) is an annual music and arts festival focused on small venues and emerging artists. It runs in Cork, Ireland, and was founded this year. 

Its inaugural edition in August 2023 consisted of 13 events over 4 days, spanning genres and disciplines – punk, folk, film, hip-hop, nightlife, drama, poetry and a public speaking event. Selling out the majority of its ticketed program and well-attended throughout, the 2023 edition continues through the steady release of recorded performances collected throughout the festival. This inaugural edition was fully self-funded by the festival founders, and successfully broke even while honouring an ethos of fair compensation for all artists involved. This edition deliberately focused on venues with capacity of 100 and below.