A full day of Irish Fest

Irish Fest from yesterday is sort of this blur of happy activity. Yes, I can hear you chuckling at 'blur' while you think 'I know what that means!' but no, there was no drunk involved. Drinking yes, but no garbled 'whee! ThIs iS gReat! *hic*'

As a volunteer, I got to enter before the Fest officially opened. This pleased me as it falls into my 'Not allowed? Me? I'm allowed everywhere.' belief. I was the first of my group to show. What can I say? I was eager.

Ticket taking is pretty easy when the price of admission is 'free' for half your shift. Originally, it was free from 4-5. That became 4-5:30 because, from what I heard, there was a typo somewhere and they decided to honor the typo. In the end, they opened the gates a bit early and extended the free a bit due to traffic issues (Brewers game, State Fair, and Irish Fest all in the same day?) so it turned out to be free from 3:45 to 5:45. More or less.

When it's free what do you do? You welcome people in, hand them the information brochure and encourage them to have a good time. No script, no specific words to say, which meant a lot of me burbling in a silly fashion to whomever walked up. 600 some people walked through my gate so a lot of people had to deal with me, including my buddy Jesse and his girlfriend, which was nice.

Once the free was over, the flow of people died off a bit. We were at a gate that probably gets the least amount of traffic so that wasn't totally unexpected. In-between us sassing each other and the people, it was a lot of fun. Most of the people were nice. Some were chatty. Some were happy to be there. Some would be happy to be there. I remember telling a gentleman and his wife that they'd arrived while admission was still free. He shook my hand and blessed me rather sincerely. It was different but not unpleasant. The crew that took over from us was led by an old work friend of mine. That was unexpected but not unpleasant.

After that was eating and drinking, wandering about, and some listening to this and that; basically the loosely planned, relaxed sort of thing that I enjoy. I think that's part of why I like Irish Fest so much. There's no real pressure to have to see one thing or another so you can just soak in it and enjoy.

5 Snakechasers and a shot of Powers whiskey. Reuben rolls and a bridie. Good times.