Irish 2000 Festival

Don't miss it! Tonight at 7

Don't forget to tune in for Rick's Irish 2000 tribute this Saturday at 7. Check out this rare poster from our inaugural year at Heritage Park (now bulldozed and gone) Time really does fly. This Saturday will be a great opportunity for you to share your memories from Irish Fest, reminisce and listen to top quality irish tunes. Don't miss it !!!!! https://www.facebook.com/rick.bedrosian

Hi Everyone! Our good friend Rick Bedrosian from Hair of the Dog will be paying tribute to Irish 2000 during his upcoming Facebook performance next Saturday! Rick will play some of your I2k favorites and share a few great jokes along the way. Its been lonely for Irish Music fans throughout this pandemic, so grab a pint and check out this great concert!

As we head into a new year the Board of Irish 2000 would like to share some sad news. 2019 which was the 23rd year of our event will also be its finale. As you may remember from our posts the last few years we solicited alot of feedback from our patrons and tried to implement as many as we could. The reason for us requesting all this input and considering all these changes was that business has not been good. Over the last 9 years we have seen decreased alcohol sales, decreas...ed attendance overall and decrease interest from craft vendors. Competition has vastly increased for special events and a lack of major corporate sponsors and a desire to keep prices affordable has made it hard for us to stay financially stable. Last year we tried to bring back Friday night, spent more than we have in a decade on bands and increased our marketing budget. Sadly it didnt work out. Friday saw small attendance and Saturday wasn't what we needed it to be financially. As a result we don't have enough reserves to run our event in 2020. So our board has made the difficult decision to not move forward with our event. It's a sad day for us as we have put our heart and soul into this event. Some of us have been working on it since year one and its difficult to imagine what September will be like without it. We do want to address the decision by the Utica Festival to move to our weekend. While disappointing and surprising to us it had zero bearing on our decision which was made for business reasons well before that announcement was made. We are proud of the 23 years of Irish 2000 and of our efforts to support and promote Irish music and culture. We are so grateful to all of you- our patrons, fans and supporters for your love of our event and your loyalty. We will never forget you. No one knows what the future may hold, but for now we fill to you the parting glass. God Bless and joy be with you all See more

The Festival board is meeting on Thursday and we have one final item we would like your input on and its about our location. Should we stay at our current location in Ballston spa NY or move the event back to our previous location in Altamont NY. We really appreciate your input on this and all of the other items we have asked you to weigh in on. At the end of the day your views as our loyal patrons mean the most to us. If you have an alternate suggestion please feel free to leave it in the comment section!

Thanks to everyone who has been providing us with valuable input! There are a few more things we would like input on over the next few weeks, so keep that participation coming! Today's questions are- Should we ad exhibition games in rugby or hurling ore another Irish sport to our festival offerings? Would adding athletics make it a better event for you? Would you like to see an Irish "Feis" or dance competition added to the Festival? ... How would you feel about an Irish karaoke competition? Finally, would you like to see us bring in an inflatable Irish pub and show sports and feature some solo acts?