Savour Kilkenny may well have just seen it’s biggest and busiest year to date.
With the October bank holiday weekend festival in Kilkenny now firmly in the rear-view mirror, the number crunchers have been hard at work, today reporting that over 68,000 visitors descended on Kilkenny last weekend over the course of the Savour Kilkenny food festival.
If you’re keeping track, that’s an 11,000 increase on last year’s record-breaking 57,000 estimated visitors.
Shepherded by a raft of sold-out dining events in Mount Juliet Estate, Lyrath Estate, Arán (who had a waiting list about three months long), the Medieval Mile Museum, Statham’s and more, the star of the show is always the Savour Market across Saturday and Sunday.
While Saturday got off to a rainy start, it didn’t seem to dampen any spirits with both the Taste and Savour tents packed for talks and demos, with food-hungry attendees to the market stalls facing queues from early on. Saturday’s market was extended to 9pm with thanks to support from Kilkenny’s Night Time Economy programme, while a live outdoor show from Abbaesque in the Kilkenny Castle grounds added several thousand more visitors for the evening side of things.
Per the official release from Savour Kilkenny, all this meant that “Kilkenny’s finest restaurants were full for the weekend, while hotel beds were at a premium. Local traders said that the increased number of visitors in the city brought a late Autumn bumper-spend throughout the city centre.”
While festival chairperson Ger Mullally added “Saturday was undoubtedly the busiest day ever at a Savour Kilkenny festival as locals and visitors came out in their droves. The stallholders sold out of popular products and were taken aback at the turnout”.
Monday adds more
This year was the first I managed to squeeze in ‘Madra Monday’, which saw the craft distillers and brewers tent taken over by Connolly’s Red Mills for a dog-focused day, while Mountain View’s Loaded food truck kept the hunger at bay for some, along with some coffees and crepes (the market only runs on Saturday and Sunday).
Even on the Monday, solid crowds turned out for the CISE tastings and demos, all of the dog-lovers activities and a special panel discussion on the Savour stage celebrating the Matriarchs of Kilkenny Food including festival founders Olivia Goodwillie and Anne Neary alongside Helen Finnegan (Knockdrinna Farm, formerly Knockdrinna Farmhouse Cheese), Mag Kirwan (Goatsbridge Trout), Mary Walsh (of the chickens) and Julie Calder-Potts (Highbank Orchards).
Any festival or event that can turn out a near 20% increase in numbers after a bumper 2023 staging must be doing something right.
Here’s to Savour 2025.
