Summit

Once a year all of us current and former bigwigs at Irish Fest get together for a day's worth of serious business. We'll spend the day talking about the festival, some day-to-day operations stuff. More big picture stuff: Irish Fest in 5 years, ten years. Who we are, who we want to be when we grow up. How we can stay healthy, growing (but not too big) and prosperous. How we can make sure that we're around as Kansas City's best festival for many, many years to come.

This year's meeting is Saturday. We've gotten in the habit of calling this day long meeting a "retreat", which I don't like at all. To me a retreat calls to mind one of two things: running away from an advancing opposing force or the kind of gathering that involves drum circles, group hugs and lots of sharing of feelings. Neither of those apply to this event, thankfully.

You'll see the fruits of our labor on the ground come Labor Day weekend, and for many more Irish Fests to come. If you have a burning issue, concern or complaint you'd like added to our agenda, let's hear it. After all, as I've often said, this is your festival. We're just keeping it running for you.