Belfast? There's an App For That.

Four new Belfast related iPhone Apps have recently been launched to the iTunes App Store. The Belfast Music, Literary Belfast, Go To Belfast and My Tour Talk Apps were all launched last year in order to help raise Belfast’s profile and to engage tourists who may be visiting Northern Ireland for such events as the MTV Europe Music Awards or the Titanic Centenary.

Click on the  images below to be taken to the iTunes app store where you can download these apps!

The Belfast Music App has been created by Belfast City Council in partnership with NITB, Filmtrip, Culture Northern Ireland and OhYeah to accompany the new Belfast Music website and the music bus tour, and to lift the international profile of music in the city. The app itself showcases many of Northern Ireland’s top venues and homegrown legends alongside more modern musicians. This exciting new app features musical accompaniment from Neil Hannon, The Undertones, David Holmes, Ash, Therapy? and the Ulster Orchestra and takes you on a journey through Belfast’s rich musical heritage. 

The Literary Belfast App has been developed by Belfast City Council in partnership with NI Tourist Board, Filmtrip, CultureNI, Queen's University and the BBC. The app boasts video guides by Seamus Heaney, Michael Longley, Paul Muldoon, Sinead Morrissey, Leontia Flynn, Bernard MacLaverty and Ciaran Carson, and offers the audience a unique view ‘Through Writers’ Eyes.’ Alongside this is a News and Events section, which keep you up to date on festivals, readings and literary events across Belfast. The app also features guides through literary landmarks and facts about famous writers from the city such as The Chronicles of Narnia writer, C. S. Lewis.

For locals and tourists alike, the Go To Belfast App is the perfect app for finding your way around the city. The Go To Belfast App is the official tourist app for Belfast and is full of information, suggestions on where to go, what to do and what’s on. The app has a number of unique features which help to make it stand out as the number one tourist app for Belfast. These features include telling the app where you are and how much time you have and the app will suggest what you should do and where you should go, a restaurant finder, local recipes and an offers section to show you great deals and where to find them!

Finally, the My Tour Talk App lets you listen to fantastic audio tours of many places around Northern Ireland, from the Giant’s Causeway, to the Fermanagh Lakelands. This app offers full length or ‘bitesize’ tours both of which offer advice on where to eat, shop, drink and what events are on, alongside giving information and facts about the surrounding area.

These apps offer a wide range of information on many areas of tourism and culture and are available to download from iTunes. 

Titanic Building Launched at Slipways

Saturday 7th April marked the official launch of the new Titanic Belfast building in the heart of Belfast's Titanic Quarter. Although the building had already been open for a week, a light show on the 7th marked the official opening. This was the first Titanic related activity of the year that PastieBap attended and to be honest, I didn't really know what to expect. I knew for sure that there would be lights and I hoped that there would be fireworks.  Belfast definitely didn't disappoint; there were lights and fireworks aplenty.

This was my first time seeing the £97 million Titanic Building up close and it really is breathtaking. Situated on Queen's Island, the building houses the world's largest Titanic exhibition and is 14, 00 sq.m. - twice the size of Belfast's City Hall. Its unique architectural design is comprised of 3,000 individual silver anodised aluminium shards across its external façade that is built to replicate four 90ft hulls. The building is surrounded by reflective pools of water to complete the illusion of a stately ship looming over Belfast's horizon. 

Noel Molloy, project manager for Titanic Belfast thinks that Queen’s Island is the perfect spot for this revolutionary new building. "That's where she was built. That's where she was designed. That's where the workers lived." The scale of this building mimics the actual size of the ship and is 100ft from where the Titanic was built, with the drawing office to the right, to the left is the river Lagan where the Titanic was launched and to the south is where the shipyard’s workers lived. 

Everything about the night of the light show seemed exceptionally well organised, with portaloos being supplied, ample security and there certainly wasn't much bother despite the assumed 30,000 person attendance. The tickets for the show were free and audience members were assigned to one of three viewing locations based around the slipways with different coloured armbands marking the different areas. 

Gates opened at 8pm, and the show was scheduled to start at 9pm, with stalls being set up selling crafts and food and a few fairground rides for the kids were also there to add to the carnival-esque atmosphere. The excitement was palpable and with the weather staying dry everybody seemed in high spirits as they anticipated the event.

The light show itself started about 20 past 9, a little off schedule as they had to wait for complete darkness before it could begin. So at 9.20pm on the 7th April the music began and so did the much anticipated Titanic Light Show. The first five minutes or so simply consisted of a few spot lights being shone on the building with silhouettes of the Harland & Wolff cranes and other Belfast landmarks. This wasn't quite the electric start that everyone was expecting and it lasted far too long - you could actually hear the crowd becoming restless as the noise of their chatter rose above the classical music being played. However, after the initial 5 minutes of disappointment the fireworks began in tandem to the lights and the show really kicked off as several flares were set alight from the top of the building. The lights themselves were projected directly onto the Titanic Belfast and used images and fireworks to tell the story of the Titanic from her construction at Harland & Wolff (showing girders and cogs rotating) to her eventual sinking to the bottom of the ocean (seaweed and scene of the wreckage).

Overall the show was extremely impressive, with the images being simultaneously projected onto all sides of the building. The show was far longer than the usual projection-mapping show (which usually last around 5 - 10 minutes) as it lasted approximately 40 minutes in total. With a show this long you would assume that keeping the audience's interest would be hard, but somehow they managed to do it, with the crowd staying silent and awestruck practically the whole time. As the show ended the crowds filed out, still no trouble or problem considering the 30,000 attendance. There was also a free shuttle bus service being run from Titanic Belfast into the centre of Belfast and the queue for this showed just how popular the show must have been. Although the queues were long, the wait was bearable what with the highly charged atmosphere and the collective feeling that this was Belfast rising from the not so proverbial ashes, showing all that it's got - announcing that once and for all, it's back.

Highlights of the show can be seen here.

The Titanic Belfast website can be found here. 

Titanic Week and Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival Picks!

Titanic Week

The Titanic Belfast Festival is finally here to commemorate 100 years since the big boat sailed away.  They're putting on MTV concerts, boutique festivals, light shows, dramatisations, tours, plays, movies, all sorts to mark the occasion.  But the Biggest news is the opening of the 90 odd million pound Titanic  Belfast Centre.  Now PastieBap.com hasn't had a chance to go yet but we will be there at the end of the month and we'll be giving our opinion on whether its been £97 million well spent.  But I have to say that the buzz surrounding the opening was phenomenal.  It was all over the social media and world wide; the news papers were spreading the news. I personally am excited to see what it's like and I'm excited for Belfast to get such an impressive looking building.  It certainly makes my train ride into work that little bit better looking and it's a welcome addition to the port of Belfast.  The rejuvenation of the Titanic Quarter as a whole has been a breath of fresh air for Belfast and securing these sorts of monies can't have been easy especially during this recession. I feel it firmly secures Belfast as a world class city and an excellent holiday destination for anyone visiting for the UK or world wide.  In fact we like the building so much we've put it in our banner!  Come back at the start of May for our full write up.

Titanic Belfast

Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival Picks!

These are our top picks from the upcoming Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival.  There is a lot to choose from however so go and have a wee look for yourself.

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