About Next Year's Irish Fest ...
Loads of advertising paid off when bigger-than-expected hordes turned out to celebrate traditional arts, crafts and music from bands like local favorites the Elders, who headlined on Saturday. As the body count became excessive, festival Executive Director Keli O'Neill Wenzel cut off access to Crown Center’s terrace level, where the main stage was located. That made it all but impossible for anyone to get from point A (the spot where I ate my $3 corndog next to the guy wearing a kilt that smelled of … $3 corndogs) to point B (the eternal line at one of the few restrooms in the vicinity).
While some festivalgoers have been positing positive comments on the festival’s official blog, Tir na Blog, others are complaining. One goes as far as to say Saturday was a “major debacle” and the night was “horrendously mismanaged.” Another approved of the weekend overall despite being separated from family members when the terrace was temporarily closed. Gates were also closed for a time, even from those who had purchased tickets in advance or who had left and were trying to re-enter. Festival Director Dan Regan has responded by noting that the fire marshal demanded they comply or risk being shut down. “All guests who were inconvenienced were offered full refunds or a ticket to the fest for Sunday,” he wrote. “It [the closure] wasn't for a long period of time, and everybody was eventually reunited with their significant others.”
Festival President Ed Scanlon echoed Regan’s explanation in a statement released yesterday: “Our sincere apologies to those people who were inconvenienced, or briefly separated from friends and family members while the overcrowding problem was corrected. Every effort will be made to expand accommodations at Irish Fest next year.”
Pat O’Neill, Irishfest official (and father of Wenzel), tells us he received about a dozen justifiable complaints. “We were almost 50 percent over what we expected,” he says, estimating that nearly 40,000 people attended on Saturday. “I don’t think Crown Center has had that many people in years.”
Organizers are already discussing future accommodations. “We’re looking into going down Grand, even further and maybe into Washington Park,” he says, adding that organizers plan to do everything they can to stay at Crown Center while building on the festival’s rising popularity. “We don’t want to lose the atmosphere,” he says. “We’ll have to mix it up next year and move some things around to do so.” Unless they limit the number of tickets next year, or expand to the surrounding streets, they’ll likely have the same problems. – John Amick
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