Q & A

It's funny. This time of year, coworkers and acquaintances who know of my involvement with the Kansas City Irish Fest invariably ask me some variation of these two questions: "So Irish Fest is coming up next week! Are you all ready?" Or, more frequently "So do you have your big parade all ready? Are you still in charge of that?" Three times today and it's only noon. I'm sure I'm not alone among Irish Fest staffers.

Just in case there's any confusion out there, which apparently there is, the Kansas City Irish Fest doesn't run the Kansas City St. Patrick's Day parade. Or vice versa. Irish Fest is a major sponsor of the parade, proudly so. We love the parade. But we don't put the event on. Irish Fest also isn't run by any organization, Irish or otherwise, other than our own. We are not run by any business concern, local or national. We're run by a bunch of friends, volunteers all but one–our executive director, an employee of the board of directors. Who's also a friend. Some of us also work on the parade, which may add to the confusion, but the organizations are separate entities.

So now that we've cleared that up, allow me to suggest some alternate seasonal questions that will require much less complicated and lengthy answers:

"Hey, it's almost St. Patrick's Day! Can I buy you a beer?"
"This is a great parade you didn't work on! Can I buy you a beer?"
"Though it's St. Patrick's Day, I fully realize that Irish Fest, scheduled as usual for Labor Day weekend and not March 17th, is still in the planning stages and is not in fact a subsidiary of the Kansas City St. Patrick's Day parade or affiliated with it in any way other than as a sponsor and through some staff overlap. Can I buy you a beer?"

Glad we could clear that up. And the answer is yes.