Green Button Festival to showcase Irish talent at global locations of high footfall

Time Square in New York is among several locations worldwide where Irish culture, music and talent will be showcased on billboards.

TOURISM IRELAND has announced that it will turn advertising sites from New York to Sydney into an outdoor music festival to celebrate St Patrick’s Day.

The Green Button Festival will see outdoor digital advertising billboards turn into stages highlighting the richness of Irish music, culture and dance.

The billboards are all located in areas of high footfall – including Times Square in New York, Westfield London shopping centre, Via Dante (pedestrian street) in central Milan and Sydney Cove (on the southern shore of Sydney Harbour).

The billboards will be interactive, with passers-by scanning a QR code to ‘press the Green Button’ and activate the festival. Each stage will have a digital green curtain, which will then open to reveal the music.

Acts will include some of our best-loved artists, as well as up-and-coming talent, including Clannad and Denise Chaila, the Hot House Flowers and Kíla – all performing from various locations around the island of Ireland, including the Oh Yeah Music Centre in Belfast, the Giant’s Causeway, the Cliffs of Moher, Newgrange and Dublin’s Temple Bar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tya5tF8XrqA

Niall Gibbons, Chief Executive of Tourism Ireland, said:

"Our Green Button Festival will bring some of our best-loved and up-and-coming acts to a wide audience of prospective holidaymakers around the world. We want to showcase the breadth of our musical talent – and encourage people everywhere to come and experience it for themselves.

"Our St Patrick’s Day programme this year includes an extensive programme of trade, media and consumer activity to restart overseas tourism. Our aim is to remind holidaymakers everywhere that the island of Ireland offers the warmest of welcomes and great fun, as well as wonderful scenery and heritage. We are taking every opportunity to capitalise on Ireland’s heightened profile around this St Patrick’s Day period."

Acts performing in Tourism Ireland’s Green Button Festival include: