For almost two decades, the Oh Yeah Music Centre has been the north star of Belfast’s music ecosystem: not just a home for emerging artists and a hub for community, but also a steady pulse in a city that increasingly lives and breathes creativity. Few people know that rhythm better than Dee McAdams. As Operations Director, he’s one of the quiet architects behind the programmes, gigs, awards, workshops and everyday moments that make Oh Yeah feel less like an organisation and more like a living, evolving commons.

2025 was a landmark year: breakout shows, youth programmes expanding, more national recognition at the Aisling Awards, another electric NI Music Prize and even the unexpected rise of Dee’s Bees: a sustainability project that captured the imagination of the entire community. Day to day, Dee sees the whole spectrum of what music can do: from teenagers learning their first chords to artists stepping onto career-defining stages, to tourists reliving memories in the museum.

As Oh Yeah edges towards its 20th anniversary, Dee reflects on what that milestone really means, why Irish and NI music is having a global moment and how a new generation of artists and audiences is reshaping the future. In a candid conversation, he speaks about the past year, the power of community and the simple joy of watching music change people’s lives: one gig, one programme, even one bee colony at a time.

Hey Dee. Before we get into the wider year: Oh Yeah hosted some brilliant gigs, programmes and events throughout 2025. What was your personal highlight from what the venue delivered this year? 

The venue is so busy and hosts many different gigs and other events now that sometimes it’s hard to remember from one week to the next as we’re constantly on to the next thing. We’ve done some great community and youth focused events which always hit a bit differently when you see the impact they have. On this occasion though I’ll go the other way and plump for possibly the biggest thing we’ve done. Having CMAT do a special album launch show on a lunchtime to 300 people packed into the building just a few hours before she went on to play in front of 20,000 people in Boucher was pretty incredible. I think that would be the highlight for any venue in the country in 2025 given what she has gone on and achieved.

You’re edging closer to your 20th anniversary. It’ll be a major milestone for Oh Yeah being the city’s dedicated music hub, social enterprise, venue, museum & rehearsal space. From your vantage point inside the building each day, what does that approaching anniversary mean to you? 

It’s so great everyday to continue to see the amount of people coming through the doors grow, and the number of things we offer grow as well as the variety of things we offer. It’s a continually evolving community and as approach 20 years its brilliant to able to say that we haven’t stopped or haven’t stood still, we’ve simply got busier and busier. 20 years is a nice moment to reflect on but it won’t act as a signal to stop or become complacent, it will act as yet another springboard. The community around Oh Yeah is as strong as its ever been and we’ll continue welcoming new generations into that community.

Many congratulations on the recent Aisling Awards win, taking home the CCU Standout Social Enterprise Award alongside Tullymore Community Centre. What does that kind of recognition mean to the team & to the wider Oh Yeah community?

The Aisling Award was a real honour and those things are important as they do give us the opportunity to show tangible recognition for everyone involved in Oh Yeah. Staff and volunteers get a moment to see the impact that the work they do has, people who were there at the beginning or in the past can see the organisation they were part of continue to flourish and it acts as lovely sign for people new to the community that they’re joining something that really does make an impact not just in the music sector of Belfast but the wider fabric of Belfast and the wider society beyond that. Being surrounded by lots of other wonderful organisations and groups at the ceremony was really inspiring for those of us there. It makes you realise what a wonderful place and city that Belfast has become and that Oh Yeah is right there at the heart of it.

You’re also a huge part of running the NI Music Prize each year, ensuring the night goes off seamlessly. This year was one of its strongest editions yet. What makes the Prize such a meaningful event for you?

The NI Music Prize is amazing. It takes over my life for about 6 weeks along with the wider Sound of Belfast programme but when you see it all come together on that stage it’s completely worth it. For me it’s about providing that absolute best platform for NI artists to have their moment. We might work hard as a team all year running a venue and organisation but we also understand how hard our musical artists work and this is our way of saying ‘thank you, now go and have the moment you deserve’.

We’re also aware that for some of the artists we platform and highlight there might be career defining moments that take place due to people we’re now able to put them in a room with. The event has become a proper fixture on the UK music industry calendar which is not easy to say for things that don’t take place in London. Like everything with Oh Yeah, seeing the NI Music Prize grow over the last 10-12 years has been the best part of my job.

Zooming out a bit, 2025 was a massive year for music here and further afield. As a lifelong music fan, what were some of your biggest personal highlights?

I think the biggest highlight for me is seeing Irish music and culture take over the world. The success of NI and Irish acts has been amazing to watch. Fontaines DC, CMAT, Kneecap etc are obviously the big headlining acts in that regard but the influence they’ve had and the paths they’re blazing has been phenomenal to watch. To tie that into a personal highlight for me was being at All Together Now and basically spending most of that festival watching Irish acts blow away audiences be that CMAT, Fontaines, Bicep down to Huartan, RÓIS and Makeshift Art Bar. A truly fantastic weekend that showed me exactly where Irish and NI music is right now.

It’s safe to say Belfast is thriving creatively. From your perspective, what makes this city’s music community truly world-beating at the moment?

There are probably a few things at play. The fact that it’s a small city in global terms but has a massive breadth of different genres going on makes it a bit unique. And also its still got a real community sense to it were artists and acts are happy to collaborate, support each other and share in each others success. I think that comes with it being a little smaller. Acts see each other at gigs, in coffee shops, down the shops. They share rehearsal spaces and the limited industry resources we have. So that cumulative effect means that other people success seems achievable. And the fact that over the last 15-20 years we’ve had proper breakout moments from Two Door, Bicep, ASIWYFA, Joshua Burnside, Chalk, Jordan Adetunji etc. keeps the door open for the next generation but also keeps the creativity going as new artists see what can happen. That has to act as a creative spark for artists and I think it does.

There is also the wider success of NI culture in other media such as TV and film, that also provides inspiration, and that needs to be nurtured and supported.

You spent a decade working in the old Mandela Hall entertainment department, with Radar being  one of the most important gig nights in NI music. In what ways do you think the health of the scene has improved since those days?

It’s different. I think the success of those artists I’ve mentioned has helped but the very nature of the scene has changed. There maybe aren’t as many gigs as there were in those days (Radar, Two Step, Gifted, Animal Disco etc), and I’m not sure there are as many people going out to ‘local’ gigs but the artists are achieving success in different ways. The scene is definitely reaching beyond the old borders. In saying that I’m also seeing the rebirth of a local gig going community. There are new promoters putting on great shows, and we have kids on our Volume Control programme selling out 250/300 cap shows every 6 weeks. That whole new generation will shape the scene over the next 5-10 years and that’s important.

The other change is that there are now people in the industry here who weren’t there as support 10/15/20 years ago. There is Oh Yeah but there is also people established in their own careers who can help now, people like Rocky at Start Together, Mark at Score Draw, Charlene Hegarty and you’ve got organisations like the Musicians Union, events like Output and a multitude of venues who are genuinely interested in nurturing talent not just selling tickets. There are successful and established festivals lile AVA, Belsonic, Stendhal who weren’t there in that time 15 years ago. All of these things have shaped the scene and led to the success of artists.

Looking ahead, what are your hopes and plans for Oh Yeah in 2026 as it gets closer to that milestone year?

To keep looking forward and expanding our programmes. We’ve got some exciting stuff starting in our youth outreach through the work we do with the Ed Sheeran Foundation which I can’t wait to see start, we’ve opened up some new partnerships that we’ll announce soon and from a personal perspective in my role we be putting in a new stage thanks to support from the Arts Council. Just another step in making the venue the best it can be.

Oh Yeah delivers so much – Acoustic Picnic, Volume Control, the Belfast Music Walking Tour, the Music Museum, showcases, workshops, gigs, the NI Music Prize and a whole lot more. Day to day, week to week, what brings you the most personal contentment in the work you do there?

I get to work in music. That’s the best part. Getting to see everyday how music can have such a positive impact on the lives of people is genuinely beautiful. It comes in so many different ways on any given day. Kids coming in to after school programmes, teenagers working out a new tune around the piano, artists performing gigs on a stage, tourists coming in and chatting through memories of gigs past makes every day unique and worthwhile. We’re all steeped in music and sometimes its easy to forget just how important it is to society. It’s magical.

One of your most unexpected projects this year was keeping Irish Black Honey Bees on the roof, producing Oh Yeah Honey under the Dee’s Bees banner. It feels like a perfect metaphor for NI music: collaborative, industrious, organic & strangely beautiful. How did the beekeeping begin and what has it taught you? 

That project came out of us thinking that there was nothing really we could do from a sustainability perspective being in a big old building in the Cathedral Quarter that leaked heat and energy. Then I had the idea of contacting my old neighbour who was a bee keeper and pitched the idea to her. Stacy assured me it wasn’t that mad an idea and that she’d help deliver it. We got the funding from Belfast City Council through the Green Arts Forum and we went from there. It’s been an amazing project since the start. We got caught off guard by how much people genuinely cared about it and the reaction to it has been staggering be that from simple social media stats to people asking about the bees when I see them or when they’re in the centre.

Sustainability has become a key factor in what we do and I guess the bee project has been the biggest outward facing one but we’ve also contributed to BCC’s Music Industry Sustainability Toolkit. We’re one of the test venues for the Belfast Sustainable Cup trial which has been massively impactful in terms of sustainability and partnered with organizations like Brink on projects too. This project shows us how important and crucial sustainability is to the Oh Yeah community and people in Belfast and beyond. It’s also shown us that no matter what type of venue, building or organization you are there is always something you can do to make a difference.

And finally, as we close out the year, this is your moment to big up your colleagues. What do you want to say about the Oh Yeah team as you all head into a huge 2026?

I’m just lucky to work with everyone that I do. We genuinely do have an amazing team. We do a lot of things but we’re not some massive organisation. We exist with 10 core staff and 10 casual / event staff, a bunch of volunteers and some regular freelance artists / engineers. To deliver what we do then everyone has to really care about what they do and I genuinely think that comes across when you visit the centre or interact with one of our projects or programmes. Our team is hardworking, inspiring, creative, resilient and caring. You can’t ask for any more in a group of people you work with.