Tralee thread

The Rose of Tralee will eventually become the Rose of Kerry and will be held in Killarney - most likely at the INEC. A blind man can see where this is heading.

How so?

rumor has it that HQ Tralee have bought it & developing it into office space. Similar to the other 2 buildings they have.

Hmm...a prime retail unit on the main shopping street being converted to offices? I'm not sure that is a positive development. While it's probably better than the aforementioned vape or phone repair shops, I think offices create dead street frontage as they are closed and in darkness from 5pm every evening and all weekends... offices are fine for secondary or non retail streets but not what you want for the prime central pedestrianised shopping district of Tralee.

Apologies, I don’t know if they bought it or are renting it. Just know they plan on developing the whole building as offices.

I heard the Marty Party was cancelled as he no longer had transport to get to Tralee........ 😜

Looking from the outside it appears to be in serious trouble.

It's gone from having a tour of Ireland culminating in a full festival event in Tralee to a tour of counties that provide them with sponsorship and coming to Tralee to do 2 days of filming for RTE

Anything else going on appears to be organised by the Council and committee put in place with the Roses arriving for photo ops.

It really is a sad state of affairs when you think back to what it was.

With the rose of tralee company only organising the filming bit i would worry that there is a real risk of it being moved to inec or a Dublin studio of rte if that proves financially beneficial which would be a complete disaster

It’s one of RTEs top watched shows and has massive streaming viewership also. I’d be thinking in terms of what that does for them and there advertisers it’ll be a while yet before RTE pull the plug.

if I see any reason why RTE might have issue is the fact that it’s losing its connection heritage and tradition with the town. There is massive history there and part of that is the street festival and celebrations. I’d imagine the rose centres around the world also can’t be too pleased with the current state of affairs. Im surprised we haven’t heard more from them. They spend all year fundraising and running events to pay for the August weekend only to be told it is substantially cut back with very little actually being organised by the Rose Of Tralee.

Large viewership aside, you would wonder how long more can a 2 night televised Lovely girls competition be sustained.

And I am speaking as someone who thinks its a shame to see the Festival in its current state.

The Rose of Tralee is going nowhere. It's still a big part of Irish culture.

It'll always have ups and downs.

The viewing figures are still big and it gets lots of media attention, so it'll always have sponsors.

Fantastic news for the town if it comes to fruition and would seem to align with the mayor saying he expected a jobs announcement soon

Women enjoy it more than men.

It celebrates their achievements anyway, I don't see it as sexist or misogynist.

It has too much support for it to die out. RTE, people of Tralee and Kerry, the media, women etc all love it.

I think people shouldn't take it too seriously. It's kitsch and cheesy. It's just a festival.

I thought sponsors (or lack of) has been a growing problem, hence the Dome could no longer be afforded

Great news.

I remember the Economist Edgar Morgenroth with the ESRI was the number one reason for FDI and location of multinationals is appropriately educated workforce.

So cities have an obvious advantage but that rural towns like Killarney and Westport could sell themselves on quality of living, cheap housing etc to attract multinationals to set up here.