Traveling. Which Reminds Me...

I’m writing this post from high over somewhere between Kansas City and New Orleans where my sons and I are headed for a couple days. But if you think that prevents me from thinking about you and your KC Irish Fest experience, you are sadly mistaken my friend. Sadly mistaken indeed.

For example, traveling like I’m doing now reminds me to remind you to book that hotel room right now while rooms at the discounted Irish Fest rate–which includes tickets to the fest–are still available. I’ve stayed at both our anchor hotels, the Hyatt and Westin and you can’t go wrong with either.

As I wait for the sky waitress to bring me a drink and a bag of peanuts, I’m reminded to remind you that you can’t bring drinks and bags of peanuts into the Irish Fest grounds. Nor can you bring any other outside food or drink. Here’s a funny story. Last year we were contacted by a woman who was coming to the festival with a small child who she said had very specific dietary restrictions. Mom was understandably concerned that our wide variety of food vendors might not offer acceptable snackage for her wee child. So we told her, yes she could of course bring her baby’s special food in. We’re not heartless. We alerted the gate crew that she’s be coming, and instructed her to let them know when she arrived. So she shows up, small cooler in one hand, small daughter holding the other one. She told Kevin at the gate who she was and Kevin welcomed her warmly and said that as soon as he’d checked her cooler, she could go off and enjoy her stay at Irish Fest. Oddly, she balked at Kev’s gentle insistence at checking her cooler. When she finally allowed it, guess what was inside? A bottle of rum, a couple Cokes and a baggie of Cheerios. That was the “special diet” apparently. Guess what? The cooler spent the weekend in her discounted hotel room which included the free festival tickets.

As I feel my ears closing and my stomach rumbling, I’m reminded to remind you that we have highly trained EMTs on site should you become injured and  require first aid assistance. Like for example you might if Kevin should catch you trying to bring a bottle of hooch in to the festival.

As I sit here on the plane, I’m reminded of how much I hate flying. Which reminds me to remind you  that you can ride to Cowtown from just about anywhere on the steel rails of Amtrak and arrive at historic Union Station directly across the street from the festival grounds.

As I look across the aisle at my two sons, with whom I’m traveling, I’m doubly reminded that A: we offer lots of things for kids to do at Irish Fest, including the return of my son Tommy’s Shamrocker tent, where you can become a guitar hero and play along with any of a number of Irish rock classics, and also that  B: we need lots of big strong volunteers like my son Joe who works on our recycling team ever year.

As I tap away at my computer way up here in the sky, I’m reminded that our tech wizard, DJ Johnny Wenzel, will once again have you poor folks who can’t make it to Kansas City for Irish Fest this year set up with streaming web coverage of lots of great live performances over Labor Day weekend. And for those lucky 100,000 who’ll be here, the big video screens will be back, too.

As I try not to think about how much this trip is costing me I’m reminded that you can still get through the gates at Irish Fest for just ten bucks if you buy your ticket in advance. That, my friends, is an increasingly rare bargain.

And lastly, as I listen to Damien Dempsey on my headphones, I’m reminded of the dozens of great performers on six stages who’ll be entertaining you at Irish Fest this year...in just 92 days.

Man, who do I have to kill to get a bag of peanuts around here?