Last month, the iDIG Music Festival, a celebration and showcase of video game music, returned to Dublin. Having been lucky enough to speak to two of the event’s organisers last year – Blizzard composer Eimear Noone and former tn2 Games & Tech Editor Chris Rooke – this year we spoke to the award-winning music producer and Emmy-nominated videogame and film composer Craig Stuart Garfinkle, who had also helped shape the festival since it began in 2015. Among Craig’s composing credits in television and film, he’s also a veteran of the videogame industry, having composed the original music for the World of Warcraft expansion Warlords of Draenor and Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance II.

Speaking to Craig shortly before this year’s festival, his enthusiasm and excitement were self-evident. “Ours is a completely volunteer event. We have no sponsor, just a group of dedicated fans and artists who want to share their love of games music. So what do I do?  What do we all do?  Everything.  Right now I am mixing the audio for the HALO video we will debut on the 1st, but yesterday morning, at 4:45 AM, I was picking up our VIP guest Russell Brower [Senior Director of Audio at Blizzard Entertainment] at the airport.”

Of course, this was the second year of the iDIG Music Festival, following its inaugural event in 2015. When asked for his personal reaction to the festival’s first year, rather than isolating any particular moment, Craig chose to stress the importance of those involved in organising the event, and those attending it. “The best part about any great adventure are those that are on the journey with you. Our guests and our volunteers are what makes the entire experience worthwhile.  We just want everyone to have a great time and enjoy great music.”

Asked whether the return of iDIG was always on the cards, Craig was a little more pragmatic, revealing that the festival might not have returned but for one key development. “It was the success of our Kickstarter, ‘The Celtic Link’, that really made the festival possible this year.” The Celtic Link came about as a result of the first festival, in which the DIT Irish Traditional Music Ensemble performed a selection of video game tunes set to Irish traditional instrumentation. This success of this performance led to the production of a lucrative full length album, which in turn funded this year’s festival. “Eimear [Noone, Craig’s wife and fellow iDIG organiser] and I believe that as long as we approach things with our best of intent at heart, good things will happen – despite the stresses of producing such an event.  We hope that this year, we likewise have such an unexpected success.”

Of course, to succeed you have to improve on what you’ve done in the past, and iDIG was no exception. So what had they added to this year’s event? “More game developers!” Craig enthusiastically replied. “I think we are up to twenty-two new games to be presented from the IMIRT crowd [The Irish Game Makers Association].  Headed by Owen Harris, this is the beginning of the Irish games industry that we hope will soon rival the Irish film industry in its success.” This increased emphasis on developers was immediately recognisable upon our arrival. On the first day of the festival, crowds of developers were gathered in the hall at the RDS, all trying to show off the games they’d been working on.

One such development team was Spooky Doorway, creators of the micro-adventure game Darkside Detective. Born at the Galway Game Jam in November 2014, the first iteration of the Monkey Island-esque title was designed in under 8 hours by Paul Conway and Christopher Colston. Questioned as to why they decided to remain in Ireland to design their game, rather than emigrating, they responded that they’d compromised and moved to Galway. Elsewhere on the festival floor were dev team Out of Curiosity from Pulse College, demoing a 2D platformer called Uku as part of iDIG’s Games Jam. Coming from a 48-hour game jam, the game boasted surprising graphical fidelity and a sharp difficulty curve. The team’s mission, according to Lead Technical Designer Paul Fahey, was to “make a challenging platformer that looked really nice. […] In a way, Uku is a little bit like the Dark Souls games – it’s meant to challenge you, and the difficulty is all part of the appeal.”

[gss ids=”8176,8177,8178,8179,8180″]

While the expanded game demo area was an important difference between iDIG 2015 and 2016, the talks and performances remained the central focus. Opening with a demonstration from Craig Stuart Garfinkle, dissecting a piece he had previously composed right before the eyes of the attendants, the festival continued with a discussion between Eimear Noone, video game composer and festival coordinator, and Alan Duggan, founder of Tribal City Games. During they talk, they had focused heavily on the current state of the video game industry within Ireland, offering an optimistic vision for the future. “I feel like the first big hit is just about to land,” Mr Duggan confided with the audience, noting that the industry has continued to grow and grow despite as-yet minimal international recognition. To this, Eimear Noone heartily agreed, voicing the opinion that the Irish government should intervene and help aid the growth of a promising industry. “I personally feel that it’s time for Ireland to take a leap…to support an industry that could boom if nurtured.”

If the first day of the festival was dominated by talks, the second day was a performance showcase. The acts on the main stage, while all video game related, couldn’t have been more different in genre and style. The Belfast-based Spooney Bards gave keytar-powered rock renditions of popular video game themes, while the Irish/French/Greek group Classroom Battles performed a full set of Sonic the Hedgehog-inspired tunes in an Electro-pop/Synth-pop/Alternative style. On the other side of the musical spectrum were JJ McNamara, award-winning classical pianist, and the Triforce Quartet. McNamara performed a compilation of classical pieces and video game tunes, and the Triforce Quartet closed the second day with a series of video game themes set to string quartet. These multifarious shows illustrated the diversity and potential inherent in video game music.

And such was the mission statement of the festival’s third day: a show from Video Games Live. Started over a decade ago, Video Games Live is an internationally touring concert, performing video game music to live audiences around the world. VGL came to Ireland as part of 2015’s iDIG Music Festival and this year was no different. Featuring guest performances from Maykay of Fight Like Apes and Jack L, and conducted by Eimear Noone, Craig Stuart Garfinkle, Russell Brower, and Neal Acree, the show was a typically bombastic celebration of this niche genre that has captured the hearts of so many loyal fans.

In our interview last year with Eimear Noone, she said that she saw iDIG as an opportunity to expose Ireland to both video games and orchestral music. We asked Craig if he felt Ireland had become more aware since, or if he felt there was a need for iDIG to continue raising the flag for both areas. “I would say we can never stop waving that flag,” he says, and that attitude could be felt throughout the festival. “If music is completely commercialized and profit is the main motive for creation, you lose out on the true artists that may not have the commercial success to survive. They fall away before they can really become great.” This issue is a personal one for Craig, who sees something of himself in the struggling musicians and composers attending the festival. “What I love about games music is that it gives opportunities to composers like myself the chance to create orchestral music, find an audience, and survive. Games music, in this way, has become the classical music of our day.”

His final words were frank, acknowledging the realities of organising an event like iDIG. “We still need the audience to vote with their feet if we are to come back in 2017,” he admitted, though he has every hope that they’ll be able to do so. “Our audience is our sponsor. Without them, there is no festival!” Whether that audience will be enough to bring iDIG back in 2017, as a beacon of hope for fans and aspiring creators of video game music alike, remains to be seen.