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Kansas City Irish Festivals, Music, Pubs, & Events by an Artist in Ireland

Every year as we approach Labor Day Weekend, I am asked about the size of Irish festivals in America.

Attendance figures are notoriously difficult to pin down short of going to every Irish Festival and counting them yourself. I haven’t.

I update this list of festival attendances as figures become available and as I find them.

According to their own publicity the following might be the biggest Irish Festivals in America:

1. Bethlehem Celtic Classic - 260,000 (2006)
2. North Wildwood Irish Fall Festival - 250,000 (2006)
3. Chicago Celtic Fest - 190,000 (2005)
4. Milwaukee Irish Fest - over 140,000 (2007)
5. Green Lane Park Scottish Irish Festival - over 130,000 (2006)
6. Dublin Irish Fest - over 100,000 (2007)
7. Irish Fair Minnesota - almost 100,000 (2006)
8. Kansas City Irish Fest - 85,000 (2007)
9. Longs Peak Scottish/Irish Festival - 75,000 (2003)
10. Indy Irish Fest - over 50,000 (2006)
11. Riverfront Irish Festival - 50,000 (2006)
- Gaelic Park Irish Fest - 50,000 (2006)
13. North Texas Irish Fest - 46,000 (2007)
14. ICONS Irish Connections - 32,000 (2007)
15. Cleveland Irish Cultural Festival - over 30,000 (2005)

There appears to be a few in the 20,000 range, and some just don’t regularly post figures so I assume they’re not huge or they’d be boasting about it.

It is routinely stated that Irish Fest in Milwaukee is the biggest Irish festival not only in the US but also in the world. Wikipedia repeats this claim but cites a Business Journal article that does no more than also say it without reference to any figures.

Looking at the programs of each festival I believe Milwaukee is the biggest in terms of entertainment and features, even if it isn’t the biggest by attendance.

Some of the festivals claiming the bigger attendances are free and/or held in loosely defined areas rather than a single gated venue. These attendances are estimations, so we’re trusting the authorities that make such estimations.

The Chicago Celtic Festival figure for 2005 of 190,000 cites the Mayor’s Office of Special Events as the source.

At current rates I wouldn’t be surprised if the Dublin Irish Festival challenges Milwaukee before long as Milwaukee seems to have reached a plateau while in the last few years Dublin has gone from 75,000 to 81,000 to 85,000 to 92,000. Or so they say.

It should be noted that multiple day events are particularly difficult to define what attendance even means. And a 4-day event can have smaller crowds per day but be the bigger event overall.

If 20,000 people buy 3-day tickets and turn up on every day, you have an attendance of 60,000. But what if they only turn up for 2 of those days or even just the 1 day - is attendance then still the 60,000 places that have been sold, or is it the reality of between 20,000 and 40,000?

Plus how do festivals count their free admissions? Or do they even bother?

It’s fairly common for Irish festivals to have schemes whereby people can get in for free if they turn up early on a Friday or Thursday evening, or early in the morning for a Sunday mass, or if they bring gifts for charity. Does anybody count these people streaming in the gates who need no paperwork to gain admission? At a big event these numbers can exceed 10,000, but I’m not telling you how I counted those.

Volunteers typically are given free admission tickets for other days than they volunteer for, or even entire weekends. Usually there are also arrangements with sponsors to receive many free tickets. All of these are obviously easy to count but are they counted when they are given out or when they are collected? If somebody doesn’t avail of them then they haven’t attended.

Similarly organisers, vendors and entertainers might have passes to give out - if these are the sort of passes you display on your person then there is nothing to collect, and are they counted? Should they be counted if they are working, but many aren’t working and if they are buying beer and just enjoying the festival should they not be counted?

See Also:
   • “Irish Festivals” An Essay by Larry Kirwan
   • Damien Dempsey in America 2007
   • No More Kansas City Irish Festival here

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 31st, 2006 at 5:26 pm and is filed under Festivals. You can follow responses via my RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your site.