North Texas Irish Festival 2009

Festival

9/3/2009, Liz Patton

For the first full weekend in March, Texas gets its Celt on early. While St. Patrick’s Day glasses and beads abounded, the focus was on the vendors and musicians at the North Texas Irish Festival at Dallas’ Fair Park.

Parked in the shadow of the Cotton Bowl, the festival enjoyed partly cloudy skies and moderate temperatures, for it’s nine main stages spread throughout four buildings and also along the thoroughfare. The stages featured everything from uilleann pipe workshops, Irish dance troupes, and storytellers to local, national, and international Celtic performers.

The main stage, outside, featured the Celtic rock fusion bands like Jiggernaut, Needfire, Clandestine and Seven Nations. The second largest stage was indoors, across from the Scottish Village, and featured more traditional acoustic acts like Liz Carroll and John Doyle, the Irish Rouges and Four Men and a Dog.

The leader of the smaller stages was the outdoor pub stage, featuring Shift, and Seamus Stout – local bar performers with a repertoire of sing-a-longs, my favorite of which is “Donald where’s your trousers,” the anthem of local kilt wearers. The rest of the smaller stages featured mostly local acts. One stage was reserved for dancers, and another for workshops.

Hundreds of vendors filled the aisles in between the stages, forming insulating walls of merchandise and gabbing shoppers to keep sound from the stages from overlapping. The vendors supplied festivalgoers with myriad knick-knacks to spend their money on. Jewelry, from cheap to hand-crafted; T-shirts; period costumes; hair decorations and lots of artisan crafters selling wood, leather, metal and even cast paper artwork.

In amongst the sellers there were a number of organizations with tents. One whole area was dedicated to Scottish clan groups. There were also about a dozen dog rescue groups from Scottish terriers and Italian greyhounds up to the massive Irish Wolfhound Association and Rescue.

The layout of this festival meant either walking through lots of crowds while getting your exercise, or parking at one or two close stages and missing the action at the other end of the festival. The festival had to change its floor plan because the area it used the previous year was under construction. One advantage of the new design was it allowed more people to come without being totally packed, and the rumor vine had it that the festival was able to add about 100 more vendors.

One downside to this festival was the location costs. Highway robbery is alive and well in parking and concession costs at Fair Park. It was $8 per car for parking, and $3 for a bottle of water. While temps were only in the mid 70’s, that can still lead to dehydration if people are not drinking enough water due to costs, and not utilizing the water fountains. I found that about $45 got me through the day – covering parking, admission, 1 meal (I snuck crackers in my bag to munch) 1 bottle of water (I kept re-filling it at the water fountains), and a couple beers.

Overall it was a good festival with great music, vendors and layout for someone willing and able to walk around all day long. For the bands available the costs of the festival really aren’t that bad for an entire day of entertainment. I do hope the festival keeps a larger footprint for next year, especially if the number of attendees continues to increase. If you live driving distance from Dallas (or can bunk with someone who does) I’d recommend putting this festival on your calendar for next year.

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