Dublin Festival, Friday

Just back to the fancy-pants hotel in Dublin with some thoughts and observations on day one.

The grounds for this event are only gorgeous. We're in a big, wooded park with lots of grassy open space and trees and nature and squirrels and whatnot. Very user and eco friendly. The staff, even the ones we don't know and who don't owe us beers, are friendly and pleasant. We all fought the urge to pitch in and help...at times it felt like we were in some sort of alternate Irish Fest universe watching other people in Irish Fest Staff shirts work so hard. Bizarro Irish Fest.

As we enter our first year of no cash sales at the beverage tents, it's helpful to see the way they run things here. Drink tokens are sold in $2 increments, cash accepted for food vendors. Much like we plan on doing. The system seemed to work well and with luck will in K.C. too.

Musically, this being a much larger festival than ours, we had our pick of venues and genres. We saw 2008 Kansas City Irish Fest performers Scythian and Slide, both of whom tore up their respective stages. Those of you who have either or both on your KCIF schedules are in for a treat. We also caught shows by one of my personal favorites from Northern Eastern Canadia, Vishten, as well as the veterans who make up Patrick Street. Our good friend Brian Doherty of Evans & Doherty put on a great show, as did the venerable Makem & Spain Brothers. With text messages and phone calls flying between Dublin and the Kansas City Irish Fest entertainment committee all night, I wouldn't be surprised to see any of these at future K.C. Irish Fests.

A highlight of the Friday was seeing representatives of the Irish Fests in Milwaukee, Michigan, Pittsburgh, Cleveland and other cities who've gathered here in Dublin. It's a great fraternity of festivals we've built and it's good to renew old contacts. Tomorrow all the festival directors will gather for a brunch meeting and no doubt will deal with weighty issues such as how to get through a brunch meeting with a massive hangover. We'll see how that turns out.

More reports tomorrow, and I'm sure they'll be as worthless as this one. Until then, rest assured that your Irish Fest representatives are doing you proud in Ohio. We've been here a full nine hours and not a single arrest. That's gotta count for something.