Spiegel Tent Festival for Navan
Navan’s Kennedy Plaza is set to be transformed this summer as the Spiegel Tent Festival comes to the town for a spectacular festival which will begin on 21st June and run for nine nights.
It is anticipated that over 6,000 people will access the spiegeltent which will host two shows each night at 7pm and 10pm, while close to 100,000 people will enter the carnival area which will be constructed along the full length of the plaza.
The entire event is being produced by Brian Byrne, Barry Ennis and Nick Murphy of Lantern Events from Wexford and they have previously been involved in such things as the Wexford Opera festival and Volvo Ocean Race.
Acts confirmed already for the festival include Jack L, Mick Flannery, Rebecca Storm, Jenny Fish, Brendan Grace and the Celtic Tenors.
Councillors in Navan formally agreed to proceed with the festival at a special meeting on Tuesday following a proposal from Cllr Shane Cassells who had sought the creation of a summer festival in the town at the February meeting.
Cllr Cassells heralded the festival as an “amazing carnivále of music and enjoyment which is going to put Navan firmly on the map.”
Spiegeltents originated in Belgium in the early 1900s and are hand-hewn pavilions weighing approximately 20 tonnes. There are only 16 of these unique ‘mirror tents’ left in the world today. The one which is being brought to Navan is currently in Perth, Australia and will form the centre piece of the festival.
It will be located at the Dunne Stores end of Kennedy Plaza and a garden area will be constructed around it. A Parisian style carnivále will then form the rest of the festival area with original 1920s themed pieces filling the rest of the area including a 25 metre high Ferris wheel, ornate carousel, helter skelter and chair-o-planes.
Bespoke concession stalls will be located along the plaza and these will be offered to hire to local ratepayers firstly and the promoters of the festival estimate that it will be worth close to €1m for the Navan economy with a very positive spin off effect for hoteliers, restaurants, bars and retailers throughout the town.