Businesses donate € 80k for street festivities
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The 51st International Rose of Tralee Festival kicks off this Friday and the line up of festival entertainment holds something for all tastes.
The Festivals has an entertainment programme to rival any major Festival in Ireland this summer and it's all thanks to the vintners and the business community of the town who have donated almost €80,000 to finance the event.
Festival of Kerry Support Group Chairman, Danny Lean has expressed his thanks to the business community in the town for their "tremendous" support.
"We're close to reaching our financial target and taking into account our Dog Night at Kingdom Greyhound Stadium along with the 'Wear the Roseband' initiative, both coordinated by our Charity Partners Jigsaw Kerry, we expect to have raised close on €80,000 by the time the fireworks go off on Tuesday night next," he said.
While spending on this year's festival is substantially less than what went into last year's fiftieth anniversary spectacular Danny Leane said the public can still expect a great week.
"People must realise that we spent €115,000 on the streets last year and the Rose Office spent over €150,000. This year we can only spend what people give us and our total will be close to €80,000 from the street collection and €100,000 from the Rose Office. But we still have a few cheques to collect so we are still on the prowl around the streets of Tralee".
Event Coordinator Bryan Carr said that while the scale of the street festival has been scaled back on last year there still something for everybody at this year's Festival.
"Due to the financial constraints we are much more focussed on day-time family entertainment rather than late night street events," he said.
The Town Council have been very good to us again this year by giving us Pearse Park along with the Park Dome for the 'Bloom in the Park' event plus we are going into the Town Park with more family events on the Sunday, which will be one of the highlights" said Bryan.
- SIMON BROUDER
