The HearSay Audio Arts Festival (hereinafter HearSay) is a gathering of, predominantly, independent audio creators from all over the world who come to an Irish mountain town of KilfinaneFootnote 1 to discuss audio production, inspire each other and make business contacts for the future.

The first edition of HearSay took place in November 2014, when 140 attendees from all over the world arrived at Kilfinane. The founder of the festival Diarmuid McIntyre wanted to introduce Irish production and the place he lived in—Kilfinane—to others. McIntyre claims, “The internationalisation of audio feels like it’s actually harder in Ireland, because accents are strong, stories are specific and as people can suddenly now listen to audio from all over the world, it’s harder for makers in Ireland to be seen as part of that international grouping” (OH McIntyre 2019).

The first edition of HearSay was attended by participants from eleven countries. McIntyre wanted all countries and continents to be represented in proportion. He explains his aim: “We were trying to build a bridge between North America and Europe. There were events such as the Third Coast in that time, but when I went there last year, there were 800 people with only 47 Europeans. That’s not a strong international twist. In places like the IFC or Prix Europa, they have even smaller international twists because they are still very European-focused” (OH McIntyre 2019).

HearSay has several elements of a conference as well as a festival, which is why it is rather difficult to characterise the event by a single word. I would not categorise the even as a conference or a festival (even though the word “festival” appears in its name). Mostly, it is a community gathering, and McIntyre himself uses the term “HearSay”, rather than the “HearSay Festival”. The HearSay website even shows the following caption: “HearSay is more than a conference. HearSay is more than a festival. HearSay is a community. HearSay is a family” (HEARSAY, © 2020). The description of HearSay as a family meeting is similar to how the European community sees the IFC. The HearSay Prize competition takes place in parallel with the event, and I will address it further in the text.

The following sentence is also presented as the main motto of HearSay on the website of the event: “The world’s finest audio makers take over an Irish Mountain Village” (HEARSAY, © 2020). McIntyre argues that each word in this sentence has a specific function and provides the reader with a clear message:

  • world’s—participants from all over the world

  • finest—creators who won many awards, the most prominent of the respective field

  • audio makers—representatives of various genres of audio production

  • take over—you can encounter anything related to audio during the event (and for some time before and after) in every corner of Kilfinane—various sound installations in unexpected places, the interconnectedness of the local community with audio creators and so on

  • Irish—the geographical description of the location, which refers to the Irish culture appealing to potential attendees

  • mountain—hints at the exclusivity of the environment

  • village—emphasises the fact that it is not a giant anonymous city.

(OH McIntyre 2019)

HearSay is ready to serve particularly to audio makers who focus on a broad spectrum of genres. I purposely say “audio makers”, rather than “radio makers”, as it primarily concerns the freelance creators who make podcasts, sound installations, sound collages and similar subgenres that are not often broadcasted on radio. It would thus be wrong to label them as radio makers since they do not really have anything to do with the radio. For these reasons, Diarmuid McIntyre refers to the production presented at HearSay as “audio” and not “radio”, which is reflected in the name of the event.

The dictionary defines the term “hearsay” as “unverified information heard or received from another; rumour” (The Free Dictionary, © 2022). Diarmuid McIntyre does not want to associate the name of the festival with this definition, so he insists on it being spelled as HearSay—i.e., with the capital letters at the beginning and in the middle. According to him, the name refers to the activity of hearing and saying. McIntyre thus strives to emphasise that experiences usually take place through the auditory perception of a recipient who then conveys the information orally. McIntyre explains that “[w]e didn’t want it to be just formal sitting in the lecturing room where people just passively receive the information. It’s not a radio cinema style event. We were really clear right from the beginning that there is not such a thing as an audience, too. All of us are producers, and we inspire each other” (OH McIntyre 2019).

According to McIntyre, the HearSay participants are not considered to be an audience, as they become the direct actors of communication. Given that in 2019, more than 180 events took place in 19 different locations in the village over the four days of the festival (HEARSAY, © 2020), it is impossible for all the attendees to see, hear and experience the same things. When meeting during the festival, the participants share their experiences and recommend different events to each other, which allows them to create the festival’s content for their fellow attendees. The attendees also create the schedule themselves and contribute to it with their programmes.

The Danish author Rikke Houd called HearSay the “Woodstock for Audio” (HEARSAY, © 2020), and this phrase often appears in the feedback given to Diarmuid McIntyre by the attendees of each edition of the festival.

HearSay is not held under the patronage of any institution that dictates its content or conditions. Nevertheless, the establishment of HearSay is tightly linked to the organisation Grey Heron Media (hereinafter Grey Heron), founded by Diarmuid McIntyre in 2007 (HEARSAY, © 2020). Grey Heron is a small production company focused on making commissioned radio and television programmes (e.g., for the Irish station RTÉ and for regional TV stations). During the early years of its existence, Diarmuid McIntyre was the only team member; in 2011, he was joined by Mary McDonnell and Mairéad O’Connor (GREYHERON, © 2020). Although several employees have come and gone through the years, Grey Heron Media remains a small company—in the most populated times, the team had four members.

The History of the HearSay Festival

At the time of HearSay’s establishment, several other festivals had existed, some of which were competitive, others were noncompetitive in nature, such as the IFC, Prix Europa, Prix Italia, the Third Coast, Prix Marulić etc. A question thus arises as to why Diarmuid McIntyre felt the need to introduce a new platform for audio creators. He explains his motivation to be the following: “I felt like somebody like me, an independent producer working outside of the capital city of a small country and in a small team, didn’t actually belong in those conferences. I was clearly told that Prix Italia is mainly for broadcasters. I wasn’t even allowed to enter my work because only the broadcaster was allowed to participate in Prix Italia, not a freelancer. I didn’t know much about Prix Europa, to be honest. I wasn’t into prizes at the time. And when you look at the program of Third Coast, you’d see almost nobody outside America ever even speak there—except for Peter Leonhard Braun. And it was so far away, Third Coast was like a dream place” (OH McIntyre 2019).

Even though McIntyre claims that he did not have any competitive ambitions, in 2013, he created, with his team, a programme for the Irish national broadcasting station RTÉ called Take No More.Footnote 2 The documentary was nominated for several competitions and festivals, and McIntyre was sent to represent the production team. He met other creators there and realised that he was not the only one feeling, as he did not belong to those events. This inspired him to establish his own platform for the independent creators.

A major push for the establishment of the festival was the nomination of the city of Limerick for the National City of Culture,Footnote 3 which was ultimately awarded to it (LIMERICK, © 2020). The nomination included the possibility of applying for a grant for projects related to the development of the city of Limerick as well as the entire County Limerick; hence, Diarmuid McIntyre and his colleagues from the Grey Heron decided to try their luck and apply for a grant to finance the first edition of HearSay. McIntyre recalled the chaotic beginnings: “We had no schedule in the first year. But we asked a couple of people whom we wanted to meet and have conversations with, for example, Alan Hall. We asked him if he would come if we would organise something like that, and he said yes. So, we had a list of people who were up for doing it. And then at midnight, the application deadline, we were thinking what happens if we don’t get the funding. Because there were these big financial commitments—accommodation, plane tickets, pay these artists to come… However, we decided to do the festival no matter what. But the people from the project office couldn’t quite get why anybody would be interested in sound or creative audio, so they didn’t fund it, not a penny” (OH McIntyre 2019).

The lack of grant funding constituted a major complication for the organisation of the first edition of HearSay. The event is not funded by any other grant; it is not financially supported by the EBU like e.g., Prix Europa., thus it lacks financial stability. McIntyre and his team received 5,000 euros from the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland,Footnote 4 and the rest had to be financed from their own sources. McIntyre decided to use the money granted to cover the plane tickets for speakers from different countries and continents so that they could come to Ireland. He thought that otherwise no one would have arrived. And still, the invitation for a short stay in a small Irish town for the purpose of getting together to explore the creative forms of audio was quite bold. One by one, all the invited speakers confirmed that they would come and started to spread the word about HearSay.

While McIntyre and his colleagues Mary McDonnell and Mairéad O’Connor strived to secure the necessary venues, plane tickets and so on, they continued to do their primary jobs, i.e., creative work for the Grey Heron Media. Therefore, they dealt with planning HearSay during evenings and in their spare time. The work was voluntary, with no payment; everyone did it because they wanted to. McIntyre claimed that after HearSay 2014 ended, all three main organisers were extremely exhausted. Although the festival was not nearly as large as it is today (n 2014, 140 attendees arrived, and the programme took place in 4 locations, while in 2019, HearSay was attended by over 550 people, and the programme took place in 17 locations), the team of the three members, with the help of many volunteers, had to make every effort for the event to run smoothly and, on top of that, did not receive any financial reward.

Given the amount of work that the organisation of the festival needed, for the second edition in 2015, Diarmuid McIntyre decided to pay for help from the Grey Heron Media’s funds. The team remained the same; the difference was that they did not deal with the organisation of the festival only in their spare time (although it also did occur) but during the hours working at Grey Heron. Unfortunately, this strategy did not pay off either, as everyone was exhausted at the end of the second year, or because Grey Heron almost went bankrupt due to financial strain. The company paid for the work on HearSay; however, the employees did not have time to complete other commissions, so the company did not have any production or income to show. McIntyre evaluated the experience as follows: “Everything felt wrong. It was truly tough. It was scary” (OH McIntyre 2019).

Moreover, the full workload contradicted McIntyre’s original idea. He explains that “[b]ecause of our work, we were all the time closed in our office planning things, and we didn’t meet up with our guests at all; we didn’t have conversations, which was the main purpose of HearSay. I felt like that person I’m-stuck-in-the-kitchen-at-the-party-I’m-sort-of-hosting” (OH McIntyre 2019). For this reason, the team decided to take a break and organise the following edition of HearSay again after two years instead of one.

In 2017, HearSay become an independent organisation existing without the support of Grey Heron. In addition, McIntyre introduced a rule stating that nobody should work for Grey Heron and for HearSay at the same time. It was not fully abided by as he personally worked for both. Over time, a different rule was imposed asserting that McIntyre would divide his working days into “HearSay days” and “Grey Heron days”, during which he would work strictly on one or the other. Mairéad O’Connor left Grey Heron in 2017 and was replaced by Daniel Clancy, who, together with Mary McDonnell, worked for the company full-time. To help with planning HearSay, McIntyre hired several external employees, offering them short part-time contracts. They only worked for several months before the festival. The rest of the time, McIntyre worked on HearSay on its own. This solution was also not ideal and caused some frustration among the organisational team.

During each HearSay edition, a new modus operandi was searched for to ensure that the festival ran smoothly and that the workload of Diarmuid McIntyre and other Grey Heron employees was reduced.

The 2019 edition did not see the perfect solution either; however, it probably worked the best up to that point. McIntyre hired several external employees for whom specialised positions were created; these employees overserved the planning and arrangement of accommodations for the attendees, created a schedule for the volunteers, secured the technical equipment for the entire event, ordered plane tickets for the speakers, created promotional materials and timetables, and arranged a number of things without which HearSay could not be held. I personally did a lot of work as I joined the organisational team for a six-month-long internship and became McIntyre’s personal assistant. During the preparation period of the festival, Daniel Clancy and Mary McDonnell worked on things for Grey Heron and only joined the HearSay organisation in the last weeks before the festival itself.

The first edition of HearSay in 2014 was free of charge for all the participants. McIntyre was aware that it would be difficult to get any participants to come to a brand-new event in the field of audio, which takes place in an unknown village in Ireland, much less asking them to pay. In 2019, McIntyre realised that the cost of the festival increased and that it was necessary to use sources of financing other than sponsors and his own means. However, he did not want to burden HearSay attendees too much, as he knew that HearSay is often frequented by the independent creators who pay for the admission themselves. Therefore, he created several types of tickets. The HearSay19 Multiday All Event “Immerse” Pass costed 197 euros, but the third of all the tickets was sold as HearSay19 Give Only What You Can Afford Immerse Passes—the attendees would only pay what they could afford/wanted to pay from 30 to 170 euros. There was also a special type of ticket intended for volunteersFootnote 5 who came to Kilfinane from all over the world to help with the organisation of the festival. They were not asked to pay anything but had to work a fixed number of hours during the entire festival. Diarmuid McIntyre thus wanted to offer a chance to attend to the people who could not afford travelling to Ireland and buy a full ticket (HEARSAY, © 2020).

Although none of the volunteers or speakers were paid, the overall cost of HearSay 2019 was very high because it covered travel expenses and accommodations. In 2019, however, McIntyre could afford that thanks to strong sponsorship, which occurred for the first time in the history of the festival.Footnote 6 The festival also formed partnerships with other arts festivals. Despite all that, after deducting all the expenses, it did not profit, and the sponsorship and ticket revenue covered nothing more than the cost of the festival. In 2019, Kilfinane saw more than five hundred attendees,Footnote 7 which was in stark contrast to the regular population of the town, which reaches slightly more than seven hundred inhabitants. The festival was completely sold out already several months prior to the date of it.

Diarmuid McIntyre laughs at the change of the perspective: “I feel like before I thought of an American Third Coast Festival as something very far away and I dreamt that one day I would go to Chicago, but now people from America or Australia feel the same way about HearSay. It is like if you’re a football fan. I could imagine that there are people in China who support United of Manchester and dream about visiting the UK one day” (OH McIntyre 2019).

The HearSay festival is still dependent on voluntary work and the help of people who care about the entire event. Even though, today, it has a great reputation and is financially more stable due to the various sponsors, it would not be able to go on without the enthusiasts who come to Ireland and help with the organisation of this international event.

How HearSay Operates

According to Diarmuid McIntyre, HearSay is focused on “creative audio”. What does it mean, though? All audio is creative, isn’t it?

Like festivals focused solely on horror films or series, the field of audio sees individual festivals focusing on a single topic, which becomes the centre of attention. The field of audio includes news production, creating reportages, broadcasting concerts, stations focusing on pop music, drama production and much more. Making creative and experimental content is just a small fraction of what is done in this field, and that is what the HearSay festival specialises in.

McIntyre wanted to build a platform for a broad spectrum of people: “We knew there were some other audio festivals in the world. But we decided to do the best audio festival in the world. Not in Irish terms. In the world” (OH McIntyre 2019). It is difficult to say whether this bold decision has been fulfilled. It is certain, however, that in just a few years of existence, the festival has built a very strong reputation and prestige of one of the most popular gatherings of audio creators worldwide. McIntyre added, “OK, we don’t need to be the best, but the most compelling for sure. To support curiosity, to inspire” (OH McIntyre 2019).

HearSay inspires considerable positive feedback since it offers many opportunities for participants to present their work in unexpected spaces and contexts. Anyone may realise his or her creative ideas on the street, in a car, in a restaurant, in an old chapel or in the woods. Nothing is impossible. Given that HearSay’s content often depends on what is happening “here and now” (for instance, on how locals react or on what participants manage to record), each event is unique and cannot be repeated. The attendees are often left with a feeling of “I was there, I experienced it” or “I have never experienced anything like that before”, and thus HearSay has the hallmark of something rare and privileged, to some extent.

The truth is that the festival is open to virtually anything. This, however, translates into a highly demanding organisation and extreme strain on the organisational team. McIntyre explains, “We wanted a couple of principles that were there right from the off. No name badges for people. No headliners—anybody who feels like that is just likely to be sitting in the next event next to you. It is a place of experimentation, a place of coming up, thinking right from the off and inspiration” (OH McIntyre 2019). The decision not to hand out nametags is very rare at an event of this type, and it brings HearSay again closer to a festival rather than a conference. It is quite common, at conferences, for all the participants to wear nametags to be able to identify each other by their name and profession. In contrast to TV viewers, listeners of audio usually do not know what the host of their favourite programme, the radio actor in a radio drama, or anyone from the production team looks like. They only know the voice from the air. Often, the makers’ voices are not heard in the programme at all, as they edit the interviewee’s utterances and create the piece without their own commentary (as I address the topic repeatedly during this book). The listeners thus only know the creator’s name but have no idea that they look like or what their voice sounds like. Diarmuid McIntyre does not approve labelling based on well-known names. He wanted to prevent the creators from checking the other attendees’ nametags and deciding whether they wanted to communicate with the person based on their name and profession. At the same time, he wanted to avoid famous creators being automatically adored or, on the other hand, intimidating others who could feel too shy to come and talk to them. In short, McIntyre believes that, at HearSay, everybody is equal, no one should look down on anybody, and nobody should be afraid to give their opinion. Moreover, what a surprise when you realise, after a few cups of tea, that the person you have been talking to for an hour is a producer of your favourite podcast!

One such meeting occurred at HearSay in 2017 when the American creator Alexander Charles Adams met his enormous audio idol, Kaitlin Prest: “Last night I had the biggest crash of my life with Kaitlin Prest. Her radio has been important to me at very, very dark points of my life—and at some very joyful points. And I never ever thought that I would meet her in person and have the time to be able to go ‘Hey, this crazy thing happened to me when I was sixteen and I listened to something that you made and it made me realise that I wasn’t alone…’” (VIMEO, © 2020).

The American podcast creator Eric Nuzum, a vice-president of the Audible platform, describes the difference among HearSay and other conferences: “You don’t see as many hugs at the conferences normally; it is more handshakes and people looking at your nametags. But here, it is more like, ‘I’ve just heard your work and I don’t know who you are, but I want you to know how inspiring your work is’” (VIMEO, © 2020).

The Schedule and Creative Formats at the Festival

The content of HearSay as well as the individual events are realised by the participants themselves. Several months before HearSay starts, anyone interested has the opportunity to send McIntyre the concept of his or her potential contribution. McIntyre reads through all of them very carefully and subsequently uses them to compose as varied a timetable as possible. It usually contains standard lectures as well as sound walks, audio installations, recording sessions that are realised with the participation of locals and much more. If a Venn diagram was to be prepared with the individual circles symbolising radio features, podcasts, films, soundtracks, sound art, sound installations, performance and, much more and simultaneously, Irish, British, American, Scandinavian culture and so on, HearSay would be the place where all the circles overlap.

Since the schedule is composed of participants’ ideas, who are specialists in various professions, the individual parts differ from one year to the next, and nothing is ever repeated. It is prohibited to reuse any of the ideas. Diarmuid McIntyre explains, “It’s about enabling a frame in which then you give to people complete freedom of form and content. You need musicians? You got them. You need two weeks to work on it beforehand? You have it. Whatever a person needs, we enable it” (OH McIntyre 2019).

As mentioned before, the participants of HearSay are not perceived as an audience since they become the actors themselves. Those who take part in a programme at one point suddenly find themselves sitting on a chair and watching a lecture by a fellow creator an hour later. Everyone contributes to creating the live content of the entire event, which could be called a festival “of the creators for the creators”, although this is not entirely true. The core of the festival is not realised only by audio creators but also by the local people, who enable the whole event to take place by lending spaces, props, or their own voices. In the end, communities gather. Although most items on the schedule are accessible only after a ticket is purchased, some of HearSay’s outputs, typically installations or performances, are open to anyone who simply walks by.

For a person who comes to Kilfinane for a trip and spends only a few festival days, it may look as if the work at the festival brought together the whole village, which transforms so much during HearSay that it is virtually unrecognizable. Given the fact that there are no auditoriums, galleries or cinemas in Kilfinane, all the events take place in the available locations: in local homes, in a pub, in a library, on the street, in a park, in a church, in a hardware store, in a cider house and so on. The lack of suitable venues, which could be seen as a disadvantage, ultimately became a major advantage. Due to organising the events on local premises, the HearSay participants are not isolated from the local people. In contrast, they cooperate with them daily on several levels: accommodation, realisation of the individual scheduled events, food and so on. This helps both groups enrich each other, prejudices are destroyed, and strong friendly relations are built that promise a positive future.

Pernille Iversen, a student from Scandinavia who conducted a survey at HearSay 2019 about the involvement of the local community in the festival,Footnote 8 originally wanted to focus on the question of inseparability of the festival from the town of Kilfinane. After she interviewed a few of the local people, she realised that the situation was slightly different. While at first glance, it seems that the whole town lives for HearSay, Iversen found that many locals do not know, even after many years of the festival, what it is about. The locals join in the organisation of the festival, yet often without a deeper understanding of what their help is intended for (Iversen 2019: 3). Despite this, Diarmuid McIntyre’s main plan to interconnect the audio community and the local community is slowly starting to take shape.

McIntyre reminisces about the shift saying that “In the very first year nobody from the village got any income and nobody understood why anybody would want to come to Kilfinane. There was no interest in attending any part of the HearSay programme. It would be a bit like if you said that there’s an association of chiropractors meeting in Kilfinane who are going to be talking bones. So, we talked locally to people and told them what is happening. By the third year, it was clear that Hearsay not only had an economic impact but also had creative and cultural impacts. However, there was a long way to go before going from a ‘Diarmuid’s festival’ to ‘our festival’ for local people” (OH McIntyre 2019). McIntyre admits that in the first years, the residents had no idea that there were other kinds of festivals than just music festivals, which, in their eyes, were full of alcohol and drugs—that was also the reason why they looked down on HearSay.

The Australian documentary maker Mike Williams described his experience as follows: “As I was driving to Kilfinane, it reminded me of driving around country towns back home. Everyone here can sense you; they can feel that you are not a local. All people were staring at me” (VIMEO, ©2020). Even though the inhabitants of Kilfinane and its vicinity are slowly getting used to the regular influx of foreigners, this still means a significant disturbance of their lifestyle. One of the steps that was supposed to help the residents understand creative audio production was the promise of free admission to all the HearSay events. In 2019, McIntyre gave free tickets to anyone living in the five-mile (approximately 8 kilometres) radius of Kilfinane. This allowed the locals to attend all the events of the festival and immerse themselves more deeply into the mysterious audio community.

The interconnectedness of the communities also affects the level of involvement of the residents in the programme: they feel that the festival is also concerning them. In 2017, for instance, the Canadian creator Cristal Duhaime, together with her colleague Alexander Charles Adams, created a sound installation called The Barber Shop Experiment in the local hair salon. They invited amateur actors from the local theatre company to help them with recording the sound installation. Emer Doherty, an amateur actress who otherwise works as a shop assistant in Kilfinane, commented on her experience with the process of recording: “So many people will be hearing me. But the fact that I am not there—will they be even able to recognise that it is me? To escape into the world of audio, that is the point of this whole installation and everything with HearSay. It is great to open up the imagination and get people thinking” (VIMEO, © 2020). The abovementioned example shows the interconnectedness of the prestigious audio community with the modest environment of the festival. The actress did not have to be aware that the recording was made by a senior producer of the New York Times podcast (an American daily newspaper which has 9.41 million digital-only subscribers) who would be considered a celebrity at other festivals. Purposeful denial of the cult of stardom, support of the flow and respectful, partner approach is among the main characteristics of HearSay.

A major advantage for attendees as well as local inhabitants is an easy way of sharing information and experiences. At any other conference taking place in a large city, if you have a lot of impressions to share, you can do so only with the other participants directly at the conference. When you are at Prix Europa, for instance, and leave the building where it is held, you find yourself in Potsdam where no one cares what programmes you have just heard or who you had a coffee with during the break. During HearSay, it is as if you never leave the venue since it is the whole town as well as its vicinity. Anyone you meet in the street is either a fellow festival participant or a resident who knows who you are and is willing to listen to your impressions and share theirs.

In addition to making new contacts and inspiring each other, HearSay has a positive economic impact on Kilfinane. During the festival, the profits of the local shop, the restaurant (there is only one in the entire town), and the pubs increase rapidly. Nevertheless, even those who do not run these businesses may earn some money by providing accommodations in the form of so-called homestays, which allow attendees to stay in the houses of local people. Given that the residents open their homes up to strangers, the attendees of the festival are paired with the families very thoroughly and meticulously. The logistics of the accommodation has been coordinated by Kate Landers, an Irish native, who has been involved with the festival since the beginning. Landers has known all the families in Kilfinane as well as the audio creators coming to the festival, so she is good at pairing people together which she deems a good match. I would point this approach out as a great advantage of the festival—the personal approach that is palpable in all aspects of the event, even the accommodation. Diarmuid McIntyre also strives to arrange a festival bus, which collects attendees from all the different locations of their temporary addresses, which is really good as the regular bus line comes to Kilfinane only twice a week.

Given that HearSay is frequented by the most prominent names of the global audio production,Footnote 9 the citizens of Kilfinane have the unique opportunity to meet the top personalities of the field and peek behind the scenes of the most interesting programmes. Simultaneously, they have their horizons broadened through meeting authors from the USA or Australia and are provided with new opportunities to join international communication. Young people and students from Kilfinane, who grew up in the town with a population of seven hundred people, suddenly meet the audio creators whose podcasts reach an audience of several million listeners, which may have a considerable impact on the youths’ prospective jobs. After all, that was one of the aims Diarmuid McIntyre had in mind: to show the inhabitants of Kilfinane that nothing is impossible and that today, the entire world is within their reach.

The weakness of HearSay is media communication. Hence, even though McIntyre does not want HearSay to be associated with the term “hearsay”, i.e., the rumour, something that is talked about but not backed by any written evidence, the way the festival is run does correspond with it to a great extent. Many stories about audio creators gathering in tiny Irish village go around in international circles, and many participants come to Kilfinane because it was recommended to them by anyone they knew. According to the survey that McIntyre carried out among the attendees of the festival in 2019, 60% of the newly arriving attendees had learned about the festival through a recommendation by someone who attended HearSay in the past.

Regardless of all the communication hiccups, HearSay 2019 was attended by participants from thirty-two countries, while the 111 creators who presented their programmes came from an incredible number of eighteen countries.

The Competitive Nature of the Festival

Parallel to the festival, the HearSay Prize takes place, in which the creators compete in several categories. The competition is separate from the festival, yet both are connected closely. The winners of each category are always announced at the final ceremony during HearSay, and their programmes are listened to on the spot.

In 2019, submissions from five continents were entered in the competition, and the winners were from the USA, Germany, Australia, Belgium, Ireland, the United Kingdom, and China.

The only regulation for the competition entries is the length from two to seven minutes. In 2019, the main prizes were as follows:

  • HearSay CREATE Gold Award (The best programme created purely for this competition. New production that had not yet been presented anywhere. This category includes programmes of all genres in English or any other language.)

  • HearSay CELEBRATE Gold Award (The best programme or a shortened version of a programme that had already been broadcasted or otherwise presented. This category includes all programmes of any genre in English or any other language.)

The submitted programmes can be created in various languages. If the language of the programme was other than English, however, a script translated into English must be attached to the audio entry. In both categories (Create and Celebrate), the best programmes in non-English languages were subsequently announced; they received the Ganbearla Award:

  • HearSay CREATE Ganbearla Award (The best programme in the CREATE category made in a language other than English.)

  • HearSay CELEBRATE Ganbearla Award (The best programme in the CELEBRATE category made in a language other than English.)

Out of all the programmes submitted in both categories, regardless of the genre and language, the best student programme received a special prize:

  • HearSay Rising Award (The best programme created by a student of a full-time study programme at a university or anyone under 21 years of age.)

Finally, the genre awards were given out simultaneously for both main categories independent of the language of the production. These special awards are slightly different each year. In 2019, they were the following:

  • Best Irish-Produced Award (The best programme created by an Irish maker)

  • Sound/Radio Art Award (The best sound art)

  • (True) Story Award (The best programme based on true events)

  • Audio Fiction Award (The best fictional programme)

The winners of the HearSay Prize do not receive money or trophies as is done at the other competitions. Diarmuid McIntyre prefers the community dimension of the festival, which he strives to preserve in all areas of the event. Thus, each winner receives:

  • return plane tickets from any corner of the world to Ireland to attend the HearSay Audio Arts Festival.Footnote 10 If the winner lives in Ireland, their train or bus ticket to Kilfinane is reimbursed.

  • a week of accommodation together with the audio creators in luxury apartments close to Kilfinane (this covers the days of the festival as well as several days before and after). During the week-long stay, the winners can connect with other creators from all over the world and, together, spend the time creating, inspiring each other or just enjoying the beauty of the Irish countryside.

  • a ticket to the HearSay Audio Arts Festival.

  • an option to broadcast the winning entries at stations such as the BBC, ABC and so on.

  • a diploma (HEARSAY, © 2020).

In addition to these awards, winning the HearSay Prize means gaining major prestige and the opportunity to present your work in front of renowned makers from all over the world. Winning the HearSay Prize often results in initiating cooperation with fellow creators.

In 2019, 158 programmes were submitted to competition with creators from 28 countries on all continents except Antarctica. In the first selection round, McIntyre approached a group of audio creators from the Bristol branch of In The DarkFootnote 11 and organised a weekend gathering where they realised the preselection of programmes in each category and compiled a longlist. The gathering was attended by the representatives of In The Dark, Diarmuid McIntyre and Daniel Clancy from Grey Heron Media and me as a freelance creator.

In the following round, the evaluation was done by creators from various artistic fields: podcast creators, film makers, sound engineers, documentary makers, theatre people, dancers, performers and so on. This round did not take place in a single location; each member of the jury evaluated the programmes at home, independently of the other judges. The programmes with the highest number of points were then put on a shortlist and subsequently awarded. Overall, 31 judges from Asia, North America, South America, Australia, and Europe participated in the evaluation of the programmes (HEARSAY, © 2020).

In 2109, the Gold Award and the Ganbearla Award in the Create category were granted to the German creator Johanna Fricke for her programme Das Lied Der Salatschleuder (Salad Spinner’s Song). Fricke uses the full potential of the audio and provides a portrait of a visually challenged boy who learns about the world through sounds. The Golden Award in the Celebrate category was given to Hannah Dean for her programme called Last Requests. Hannah dealt with the last requests of the prisoners sentenced to death. In the same category, the award for the best non-English language documentary was received by the Belgian pair Joyce de Badts and Wederik De Backer. Their programme Helene talks about a woman suffering from kleptomania. The Rising Award for students was granted to Ping Zhao, a Chinese student living in the UK. Her programme Summer is Gone is a personal confession about the loss of a father. The Sound Art Award was given to Amy Hanley from Australia with her piece called Sirmadamsir: Oriented Performativity dealing with the topic of gender. The Story Award for the best nonfiction story was received by Helene Thomas from Australia for A Simple Act, in which she described the rape she was a victim of many years ago. The Audio Fiction Award was given to the American creator Neena Pathak for her story Row-Cub presenting a bittersweet tale in an interview with her grandmother about a break-up of a relationship she just endured. The Best Irish Produced Award was won by the musician Ultan O’Brien for the sound collage based on recordings made in the Irish countryside titled Fence, River, Driúillín.

My Personal Experience from HearSay 2019

Each edition of the HearSay festival lasts a different number of days. In 2019, the event was held between 4th and 7th April, i.e., for almost four days. (HEARSAY, © 2020).

At HearSay 2019, the participants had the opportunity to attend as many as 129 unique events, some of which took place repeatedly—all together, there were 169 items on the schedule and 15 artistic installations (HEARSAY, © 2020).

It’s remarkable, that the 2019 edition started already in December 2018, i.e., four months before the official event, which occurred the following April. The French audio creator Benoit Bories came to Kilfinane and spent several days there making a new documentary. He presented the first cut of the programme based on interviews with residents as well as on field recordings from the Kilfinane vicinity already in December 2018. The locals then waited in suspense to hear the final cut of the programme and looked forward to it being presented during the 2019 edition of the festival. Bories named the final cut Come Knocking a' the Door—A Kilfinane HeartSong. Many local people were excited to listen to the programme and were curious about whether they would hear their own voice or one of their neighbours in the interviews that made it to the final cut.

Like Bories did, other creators may come to Kilfinane several months before the festival starts. McIntyre is willing to pay for a stay in Ireland, spanning from several days to several weeks, for anyone who has the intention to spend the time being creative in making audio. Many creators seize the opportunity for a few days before the festival and come to Kilfinane a week or two weeks prior and use this time for preparation and getting to know the environment. These producers often interview the locals, be it for their own documentaries or for the programmes intended to be presented at HearSay. According to the survey conducted by Pernille Iversen, residents have slowly been getting tired of answering questions with a microphone in their face. When locals outnumber festival participants by a mere third, the number of interviews per capita increases disproportionately. Talking to the locals, Iversen found that they no longer wish to be recorded in the square (Iversen 2019: 12). During the 2019 edition, projects involving locals used up to 200 voices. HearSay 2019 had also an official ranking of positions: Mary McDonnell – decorations and supervision of the individual stations; Daniel Clancy and Greg McNamara – technical equipment; Nikki Martin – organising volunteers; Kate Landers – accommodation; Dave Santorum-Crespo – visual aspect of the event; sister Patricia Coughlan – organising volunteers from the local school; Emer Casey – online content creation; Tereza Reková – organisation, communication, online content creation; Diarmuid McIntyre – management of all of the above mentioned.

Diarmuid McIntyre recalled how the schedule of the individual days was being combined during the event in 2014: McIntyre, together with Mary McDonnell and Mairéad O’Connor, met each night and planned the schedule until well after midnight. The next morning, they would hang the poster on the local pub’s window for the attendees to see. The schedule of the 2019 edition was planned more in advance, however, announced still at a very last moment (two days prior festival). The schedule was divided into seven sections: Deepen, Experience, Encounter, Converse, Celebrate, Performance and Think. The characteristics of the abovementioned sections are listed below:

Deepen

The Deepen section included primarily lectures and workshops. A single main speaker via various forms, conveyed his or her experience to the listeners, mostly verbally, with a demonstration on the spot. This section was supposed to deepen the attendees’ insight into the specific topics, point out various useful pieces of knowledge used in practice and help anyone interested in improving their skills for working with audio (HEARSAY, © 2020).

Out of the Deepen workshops, I would like to mention The Moment Interview—the DNA of Radio Tales led by the renowned Danish creator Torben Brandt. He introduced the audience to the recording method called the ‘Moment Interview’, inspired by the work of his fellow creator Stephen Schwartz. The method is based on the interviewer trying to lead the interviewees by precisely aimed questions to have them relive the situation they are talking about. Documentaries often include interviewees’ memories of the past; however, most of the time, they are presented in the form of conventional storytelling. Brandt’s method encourages the interviewee to talk in the present tense, thus making it seem as if the story was happening now and here. It reconstructs such minor details as what the place looked like, how it smelled, who said what at what point or what they wore—hence reviving the story. I address The Moment Interview in detail in the section “Topic Selection and the Narrative Method” in Chap. 6.

The Deepen section featured several lectures by the reporter Sam Bungey and the documentary maker Jennifer Forde, who shared their experience with recording the podcast West Cork, a complex miniseries of multiple episodes dealing with a topic of crime. Moreover, the Deepen section introduced the American documentary maker Lu Olkowski, who talked about her thousand-mile journey to Alaska, which she recorded in its entirety, or Chris Brookes, with his lecture focused more on audio journalism (HEARSAY, © 2020).

Experience

The Experience section was intended primarily for interactive or immersive performances where the participant took part directly in whatever was happening on the stage. One of the examples worth mentioning is the sound walk called A Mile in My Shoes, which took place under the patronage of the Empathy Museum in London. Anyone interested wore shoes on the offer and walked a mile in them. They also received an MP3 player with a recording telling the life story of the previous owner of the shoes and listened to it while walking. The recordings were mini documentaries about different people ranging from Syrian refugees to prostitutes or war veterans. The listeners’ physical activity was supposed to help them empathise with the protagonist of the story, and the shoes are the literal embodiment of the English metaphor “to walk a mile in one’s shoes” to know what his or her life is like.

The visitors could also examine an installation called Table for One created by the UK creator Lucy Dearlove. On a street in Kilfinane, a small tent was erected, on which a table was placed with a single chair, a single plate, a single set of cutleries and a single MP3 player with headphones. Random passers-by could just sit down and have a meal while listening to short documentaries about people who, for various reasons, eat alone all the time. A walk called Prambulate—the Dark Side of Sound was also intended for one person. The concept thereof was created by Rachel Ní Chuinn and Conor O’Toole. The participants could borrow an old pram with an MP3 player and headphones. They subsequently go for a walk while listening to a short documentary about how difficult it is to keep a baby sleeping in a pram when there are so many sounds around and when the mum is tired and exhausted. At some points during the documentary, the baby would of course start crying, and it was difficult for the listener who was pushing the pram to distinguish between reality and fiction.

The Dreamways installation created by the German makers Lena Löhr, Martina Weber and Carina Pesch also deserves mention. The participants would lie down on soft couches, close their eyes, and have almost dream-like scenes played to them via various sound recordings. In stark contrast, the Sonic Pub Quiz by Peregrine Andrews and Geoff Marsh used the format of popular pub quizzes but focused on sounds.

A photograph of a man wearing headphones and holding a large microphone, pressing the head of another man into a wash basin filled with water.

Recording sounds for Sound Quiz. (Source: Archive HearSay, photo taken by Geoffrey London, 2019)

The highlight of the entire festival, however, was an item on the schedule called The HearSay Audio Wake hosted by a British founder of the group In The Dark Nina Garthwaite. Any of the creators present at the festival could take part in the Audio Wake and submit a recording that had lied idly in their archive for a long time and that they would like to use but were very well aware that it would never happen. During a slightly humorous ceremony that was supposed to evoke a funeral, each of the featured participants introduced their recording, reminisced about the time when it was made, and after a minute of silence, Nina Garthwaite would delete the recording from the computer once and for all (HEARSAY, © 2020).

Encounter

The schedule of the Encounter section was available to anyone without having to buy a festival pass.

The section included, for example, a sound installation called ReInvasive Specials in which the Czech Irish performer and creator focused on the sound art Slavek Kwi placed speakers in the park. Subsequently, the speakers played recordings made in the Amazon rainforest in Brazil. These recordings oddly corresponded with the natural sounds of the village and elicited a contrasting perception of the world among the listeners. Another piece worth mentioning is a mini project called Message in a Matchbox, for which the Australian podcast creator Jess Bineth collected short messages from her fellow creators. She then printed them out on small pieces of paper and put them in matchboxes, which were placed in unexpected places all over Kilfinane. Anyone could have found one of them and become inspired by the message inside.

As a part of the Encounter section, Diarmuid McIntyre, together with his colleague Mary McDonnell, installed speakers and lights in one of the toilets and played their own short documentaries (Peptalk: The HearSay Audio Toilet). There was thus no escape from audio even in the most intimate moments. Many visitors of Kilfinane were also strongly affected by the sound walks created by the French maker Stephán Marin The Unheard Walks. These were actual walks around Kilfinane, during which anyone interested would be given an MP3 player with headphones and play an audio recording prepared by Marin in advance. A unique situation thus arose where a group of approximately ten people walked through the countryside in silence, and all of them listened to the same recording each in their own headphones. There were together, yet each of them on their own. The audio complemented the real sounds of the surroundings and created a contrast to what the hikers actually saw.

Another interesting installation was the Drive Straight Ahead, which was placed in the square by the fountain where the organisers parked a car that was open but could not be driven anywhere. The three Canadian creators Cristal Duhaime, Mira Burt-Wintonick and Jonathan Goldstein prepared short audio programmes that sounded like the robotic voice of a satellite navigation. When a participant sat down in the car and fastened the seatbelt, they could listen to these instructions of the false GPS device and think more deeply about them, as these recordings included “navigation system for life”. Furthermore, anyone could get in the car, which enabled unexpected meetings and confrontations.

The Carpentry Confessional was also a unique part of the programme and was held throughout the festival. The American designer and carpenter Damien Fitzpatrick, who “married into” the world of audio while he was not an audio creator himself, decided to build a temporary confessional. In the tent, he was building a wooden bench on one side of the curtain. On the other side of it, random passers-by would sit down and just get things off their chest. Fitzpatrick would listen patiently, keep carving and channel whatever he heard into the work. At the end of the festival, he would present the finished bench.

Cooperation with locals also produced the so-called HearSay Haiku by the Americans John De Lore and Brendan Francis Newman, who based their work on the poets of Irish writer Gabriel Rosenstock famous for writing haikus. De Lore and Newman recorded a new haiku each day during the festival and subsequently presented them in public (HEARSAY, © 2020).

Converse

The main idea of the Converse category was to create space for conversation and sharing experience and knowledge. The participants of the events witnessed inspiring discussions in which they could participate.

The flagship of the Converse section was the so-called Open Houses. For these gatherings, the attendees had to book a spot in advance, as only a limited number of them took place, and each of them was intended for a maximum of 12 participants. These twelve people met at a designated time at a given meeting point and were taken to one of the local homes. There, one of the renowned audio creators would await them sitting by a fireplace with a cup of tea and would greet them with a warm welcome. The participants didn’t know where they were going and who would be waiting there. An intense hour and a half would ensue during which the speaker would introduce their work to the guests or discuss with them the problems concerning the audio community—all of that over a cup of tea and biscuits or homemade bread. These sessions were recorded, and I, together with Diarmuid McIntyre and Daniel Clancy, edited the recordings into a podcast series called the Open House Sessions, which was broadcasted in spring 2020 at a student radio of the University of Limerick and in 2021, presented at the online edition of the HearSay festival.

A photograph of a large group of people sitting inside a living room, listening to a person standing and delivering a speech.

Open House Sessions—An intense hour and a half would ensue during which the speaker would introduce their work to the guests—all of that over a cup of tea and biscuits or homemade bread. (Source: Archive HearSay, photo taken by Georgia Moodie)

Another interesting item of the schedule was the project Sound Me Out Kilfinane, an idea of two British creators, Rachel Humphreys, and Andrea Rangecroft. Within the Sound Me Out, each maker could introduce projects they had been working on to other creators and consult them or just play sound recordings they liked but did not actually know what to do with.

The Converse category also included, under the patronage of the Irish project Salon du Chat, a SoundDay Brunch held on the last day of the festival. At first glance, it resembled a get-together with refreshments, while in reality, the guests of the impromptu “café” could order, from a menu, various thematic conversations named after the individual items of the schedule of the festival (HEARSAY, © 2020).

Celebrate

In the Celebrate section, Diarmuid McIntyre wanted primarily to celebrate the creative audio in its purest form. The participants had the opportunity to listen to some old as well as new pieces, discuss them and get inspired.

The Bristol branch of the group In The Dark created an impromptu cinema in one of the local buildings where, together with the Radio Atlas, they presented internationally renowned works with English subtitles. The organisers call these screenings the HearSay Audio Cinema.

Another item worth mentioning was The HearSay Chocolate Box of Aural Delights, sessions held in the local library during which the audio producers chosen in advance would, within a given time slot, introduce the participants to programmes that had the most major influence on them. The attendees were served chocolate pralines.

A photograph of a group of people who have their eyes covered, seated inside a library and listening to their headphones.

Participants enjoying audio feast in the local library. (Source: Archive HearSay, photo taken by Amica Nowlan)

The most significant event in this section was undoubtedly The HearSay Audio Prize 2019 Awards Ceremony, at which the winners of The HearSay Prize were given their awards, and the winning programmes were presented to the audience (HEARSAY, © 2020).

Performance

In the Performance section, the creators had the opportunity to present their work in many different ways, be it a performance with the audience watching passively or an interactive one with the viewers taking part in creating the content.

The cooperation of the American radio maker Alex Lewis with the illustrator Steve Teare stood out. They created a performance called Thinking of a Place. For several days before the festival started, Lewis had recorded interviews with the locals and subsequently edited them into a sound mosaic. He then played it on the stage and accompanied it by playing the guitar. Teare would then stand next to him on the stage and paint a picture inspired by what he heard during Lewis’s sound experiment.

Many attendees of HearSay were also very impressed by the performance of the American couple Wes Swing and Kelley Libby called One by One till Many are Heard. The documentary maker Libby recorded the statements of the viewers present at the event while the musician Swing played them in a loop and accompanied them with his singing and playing the violoncello. Apart from being included in the Performance category, Swing and Libby took part in many other categories at HearSay. Both flew in Ireland two weeks prior to the festival and initiated cooperation with the pupils from the local school as well as with other local residents.

What I also consider to be truly unique was the project by the British musician and audio creator Phil Smith, who prepared, especially for the festival, The Heart’s Chorus, a varied performance resembling a musical sequence. Smith handed out lyrics to the audience and asked them to read and sing out lout at some points during the performance. He himself would sing, play the accordion, and play the recordings made in advance in cooperation with the residents. Smith managed to evoke an intimate atmosphere bordering an audio ritual where the audience would join in singing as well as making various sounds or just listening to the improvised but well-thought-out musical composition.

The performance of the Canadian artist Adriana Disman Whose Body Is This? came from a seemingly different world, far from the audio community. Disman does not work primarily with audio, so she focused on working with a body, breathing and movement. Her performance was a group experiment during which she made everyone lie down on the floor, burn a candle, and think about their past (HEARSAY, ©2020).

A photograph of a large group of people lying in a hall on their backs.

Audio experiment by Adriana Disman took place in an old church. (Photo taken by Tereza Reková)

Think

In the Think category, creators talked about topics of their own choosing. There could be different approaches to audio production, various possibilities for sound experiments, etc.

In her presentation called What Lies Beneath… the Audio Montage, British documentary maker Andrea Rangecroft focused on the principles of the audio montage. Primarily, she wanted to draw attention to the common practice of editing out the interviewer’s questions to speed up the pace of the programme and give the interviewee “more space”. How do the cut-out questions affect the final tone of the programme? Can their absence damage the main idea of the piece?

The Australian maker Sophie Townsend focused on selecting the best approach to dealing with personal stories in her Memory, Personal Story, and Truth presentation. In his seminar on Gonzo Storytelling, Mike Williams also dealt with personal stories; however, rather than focusing on intimacy, he aimed at the matter of subjectivity and authenticity of the creator as well as the limits thereof.

As part of the Think section, the British commissioning editor Jason Phipps presented an extraordinary lecture called The Secret Fears of the Commissioning Editor in which he expounded how the topic proposals for the BBC should be written and how the demands of the stations changed during several previous years. In addition to providing useful information, Phipps also offered the audience the option of consulting him about their ideas for programmes and provided anyone interested with complex feedback (HEARSAY, © 2020).

HearSay vs. the IFC

HearSay and the IFC are two completely different platforms based on different rules and different approaches to getting together. Both events promote, as the main idea, the sharing of information and experience with fellow makers and learning from each other, while the way of achieving that is strikingly different.

Diarmuid McIntyre claimed that, at the beginning, he wanted to challenge the IFC. He attended the IFC for the first time in 2009, when the conference took place in Dublin.Footnote 12 He returned home rather unhappy. McIntyre felt that the festivals of such character are intended primarily for the formal community of radio station employees who share an unspoken yet clearly implied hierarchy that is difficult for an independent creator to penetrate. McIntyre recalled his first IFC experience: “I felt like it was ruled by a generation of older makers who were allowed to sit in judgement. They were mostly men in their forties or fifties, rarely women. I also felt that there was no room for young women without resources and no room for other young independent producers as I was back then” (OH McIntyre 2019).

According to McIntyre, young creators were automatically seen as “unexperienced” regardless of what they had actually achieved. McIntyre, who did not attend the IFC again until 2015, even though he had brought back invaluable souvenirs—printed out scripts that he peeks into from time to time to remind himself what kind of production used to be made at that time in various European countries—ponders over the core of the problem: “It may be caused by the fact that the IFC is based on the institution of the EBU. I think these people inside those institutions don’t even realize that they can sound unwelcoming” (OH McIntyre 2019). In 2015, he returned to the IFC solely for the purpose of being able to compare it with the first edition of HearSay, which he had organised just a couple of months earlier.

It is worth mentioning that Diarmuid McIntyre has never fully accepted the principle of the IFC as a school of master classes where the participants learn from each other, yet at the same time, there is still a group of more experienced creators who strive to pass their knowledge to less experienced makers. As I have already mentioned, each year, the founder of the IFC Peter Leonhard Braun tried to mix up the discussion groups at the IFC so that each group includes young creators with no experience as well as some at the intermediate level and two or three “strong voices”, i.e., makers who could provide anyone with constructive criticism when necessary. Of course, these personalities should not be “lecturing” others; nevertheless, it always depends on each of the creators in what way they are able to give their opinions and on the way the others are able to accept these opinions: whether they do so with humility and respect or the opposite. The more senior creators could, to an extent, be seen as the commissioning editors: they should lead the makers to better results with their well-targeted remarks and observations. However, I can understand that people may find the rhetoric of the more experienced creators uncomfortable and may feel like they are being lectured (as sometimes they really are)—I also address the topic in the section “The IFC Discussions and Their Changes Over Time” in Chap. 8. McIntyre reminisces about his experience: “It’s almost the equivalent of the parents saying: ‘We’re doing it for your own good.’ But I did what most teenagers do with saying: ‘I don’t need your rules, don’t tell me what to do.’ And then I was annoyed, and I went off and did it my own way for the next” (OH McIntyre 2019). But it’s also worth mentioning that, luckily, McIntyre chose a good way and achieved a great success, which does not happen to all “annoyed teenagers”.

It should be said that, from the long-term perspective, IFC organisers strive to make the conference accessible to young people and not give out impressions of rigidity. Unfortunately, the development of the IFC has been rather slow in this regard.

Although borderline programmes are sometimes presented at the IFC (be it in terms of genre, topic, or creative approach), the essence of the IFC lies in documentary production. HearSay, on the other hand, deals with anything that has to do with audio, whether it is a dance performance, or a listening session of short radio dramas read by the local actors sitting in a barber shop. In brief, HearSay is a gathering of people from different cultures and backgrounds, different fields of audio (documentaries, podcasts, sound art, drama production, film sound engineering, etc.), different countries and continents, independent creators, and employees of institutions. Diarmuid McIntyre strives to bring them to have a mutual conversation and combine their interests in such a way that they overlap, and everyone has something to talk about to each other. The IFC, however, has the given structure of listening sessions followed by discussions. Even though it has evolved throughout the years, it is highly probable that this concept, proven by almost fifty years of existence, will be preserved for years to come. The schedule of the IFC is not determined by the participants but by the organisers. Whereas at HearSay, it is never certain what the schedule will look like. Each item of the timetable is of a different length; it takes place in a different location, whether indoors or outdoors. While the structure of the IFC is fixed, at HearSay, there is no set structure.

The fixed construction of the IFC also has its advantages. For instance, in 2019, the Australian creator Helene Thomas was impressed by the opportunity to listen to international programmes in full length. Subsequently, she, together with her fellow makers, was able to analyse them down to the most minuscule details, which is something the creators do not have time for while listening to streams. Thomas claims, “When I was leaving the discussion sessions, it just occurred to me that this already made me a better radio producer. You listen to pieces and then really think about them and listen to other people’s reactions, which you can use then. You find new perspectives about stories that maybe you haven’t thought about before. And when you make a new programme, then you can think about what you have heard and maybe use it” (OH Thomas 2019).

The differences between the IFC and HearSay in terms of organisation and realisation also make sense given that the IFC is forty years older than HearSay and that the mentalities of the founders of both events differ immensely. The financial backgrounds of the two events are also vastly different, and that plays a major role in the planning process. HearSay differs not only from the IFC but also from the other abovementioned competitive and noncompetitive festivals, such as the Third Coast, Prix Europa, or Prix Italia. The difference lies also in the entrance fee—while early registration for TCIAF costs $430, and the final registration rate is $495Footnote 13 (food, accommodation or travel expenses are not covered by this fee), HearSay used to be for free, and during the 2019 edition The HearSay19 Multiday All Event “Immerse” Pass costed 197 euros. There is no entrance fee regarding the IFC, PI and PE. Similarly, to HearSay, the Third Coast regularly announces open calls for ideas for side events to which anyone can send a suggestion, after which the organisers choose the most interesting ones. But at the IFC, the EBU Features group, and the hosting broadcaster decide about the programme of the event.

In 2021, all the abovementioned festivals and conferences had to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic. The virtual edition of HearSay was given the subtitle of Homefires and McIntyre did his best to make the schedule as interesting as possible so that the participants would not be merely “sitting at the computer” but had the opportunity to take an active part. The schedule included discussion sessions, listening sessions, mini concerts, or even live Audio Baking with Mary McDonnell; however, the most entertaining element was the so-called HearSay pub. HearSay pub was a computer game that could be accessed by any HearSay attendee. Those “playing” were able to move an avatar on the computer screen and meet other participants who were also online at that moment. If the avatars met on the screen, they could start a conversation via a web camera. In addition to the online content, McIntyre also prepared various installations that were placed around Kilfinane as a reminder of HearSay for the residents. The IFC, on the other hand, dealt with the online editions in a rather regular way. Even in the online “COVID mode”, the difference between the two festivals was apparent. The IFC online edition, nevertheless, experienced opening of the event to a broader audience who would never have attended the physical gathering.

A photograph of a computer screen with a woman presenting a video conferencing session with a group of online listeners.

Live Audio Baking with Mary McDonnell during the Pandemic edition 2021. (Source: Archive HearSay)

A screenshot of an aerial view of a street as a game graphic with buildings and trees.

HearSay online pub during the Pandemic edition 2021. (Source: Archive HearSay)

In contrast to the IFC and HearSay, Prix Europa, and Prix Italia did not convert to an online version in 2021. The reason could be that both events happened later in the year, so the situation associated with the virus was not as dramatic as it was a couple of months prior. The 73rd edition of Prix Italia took place from 14th to 18th of June in Milan. The organisers claimed that this would be at a time in the year when infections are likely to be low and summer temperatures would allow the participants to attend the events in open-air locations. The 2021 theme was “Rebuilding Culture and Entertainment. Media’s Role for a New Start”. Prix Europa was organised between 10th and 15th October 2021 in Potsdam under the motto “Changing Europe: diverse & united!” The organisers of Prix Europa developed a safety concept that guaranteed health protection for all participants while simultaneously enabling unhindered exchange and discussion among colleagues.

In brief, the IFC is a conference that, despite including some informal items in the schedule, is still, first and foremost, a professional gathering taking place physically in a single venue selected to accommodate all the participants as well as work groups and let them attend the listening sessions and the subsequent discussions in comfortable conditions. The participants discuss possibilities and methods of the creative process; they usually know each other and have an idea of what to expect from one another. In contrast, HearSay is a festival with a strong community ethos, but its management might be considered unorderly by some. An important element of HearSay is meeting new people, creating bonds with residents, and discovering new destinations. Each attendee should decide for themselves what they are more attracted by. Overall, Helene Thomas added that both at the IFC and at HearSay, she has thought to herself: “Here is my tribe” (OH Thomas 2019).