Winterval 24.

Greenspurs: No one said you could not comment. The number of people who attended speaks for itself.

"Anyway - i, and most people i have spoken to , have found Winterval very poor this year."

Your first sentence, the first post on the first thread, setting the scene, the position of some Kilkenny people, as ever. Default to the dark side about anything in Waterford.

When you're explaining you're losing…! And you've lost!

BTW as an aside..trying to access Winterval via the Ferrybank side was an absolute nightmare… the bones of an hour to travel barely a mile.. WTF's going on?? Last time I was in Waterfjord the roadworks were starting… IIRC is twas August 20-23.. yet almost 18month later the roads still a complete mess… why so long to fix or relalign this tiny section?? I mentioned it some locals told me that is been chaos @ peak hours since the roadworks started. I did a bit of research & saw that the main contractor is BAM. Enough said. Waterfjord will be lucky if its done b4 the end of the decade if the Nat Childrens Hospital is anything to go by! Visitors do not want to be stuck in a long tailback for an hour funnelled onto a dirt track dangerous road than a tiny piece of dual carriageway before snail-like progress over the bridge where it seems the traffic lights only allow about 10 cars through at a time. And before someone says take the newer bridge than a lot of ppl would just continue to Cork or elsewhere given the choice. Fact. It took me 1hr 20min to drive from Dublin + 1 hr to drive from a church in Ferrybank to a car park on The Kay.

And all that hassle for a new train station. And sweet FA else on the Quays. What a waste IMO. Any other Irish City would be up in arms at losing two developers on the site.

"The visitor data was collected through Smart City Data Collection which is operated by Three Data Analytics on behalf of Waterford City and County Council.

According to the data, 3 per cent of the visitors to Winterval were from outside of the country with the UK, Netherlands and the US featuring highly as the visitor's country of origin followed by France and Spain. Ninety-seven per cent of visitors came from Ireland, with a large proportion of these visitors from the Southeast region and also from Dublin.

Five per cent of attendees to Winterval were overnight visitors to the festival (accounting for 53,000 people) with the remainder being daytrippers."

Not sure how it's gathered that would be a question for Three Ireland I guess.

1.8 million doesn't say 1.8million happy people but you would expect a fair chunk of that were happy, even if only 50% we happy and it only attracted 900k next year that would still be a 200k increase on 2023, even worse case it dropped to 500k, that is still a massive boost to the city, when traders desperately need it.

While it might not have ticked everyone's box, it's a huge boost to the city.

😂 How did you end up by the Ferrybank church if you drove down from Dublin?

Yes this profile is perfectly fine, not made up to agree with another one in any way.....

There is an alternative coastal route if you drive from SoCoDub - via the M-11 and the N-25… If you happened to live in South Co Dublin its an oxymoron to drive back the m.50 to the Red Cow and then on via the m.7-m.9 to Waterford… so IIRC if one were to take the m.11 route via New Ross I think you'll find you do indeed pass the Ferrybank Church when entering Waterford, Mr Bourns,,, so get out of the parish once in awhile and you'll discover there's multiple ways of reaching your little town!

Out of interest Meatball, if Waterford is so bad why bothering visiting?

You seem to have a lot of issues with Waterford and a lot of negativity towards Waterford.

If it's not enjoyable why visit? Why so much negativity towards Waterford?

Major infrastructure works are taking place on the North Quays, Dock Road, Abbey Road and surrounding areas.

This is the construction of a new train station, new river crossing, realignment and construction of new roads, roundabouts, access bridges, footpaths and watered improvement works.

Add all that it with 1.8 million people visiting the city over Christmas and one night expect tailbacks.

Would you honestly think that level of work about being completed any quicker?

1hr 20mins on the coastal road 😂😂 and then 1hr from Ferrybank church 😂

Fantastic storytelling.

If you knew there was multiple ways of reaching our city then why didn't you use the easiest route 😂, oh dear.

This second boards account is failing badly.