Tourism Ireland today (16 March) unveiled details of its new campaign for St Patrick’s Day this year, called the Green Button Festival.
Tourism Ireland will turn advertising sites from New York to Sydney into an outdoor music festival to celebrate St Patrick’s Day.
The campaign will see outdoor digital advertising billboards turn into stages highlighting our rich 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 Conor Scott, Dani Larkin, Ryan McMullan, Clannad and Denise Chaila and the Hot House Flowers – 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.
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 Northern Ireland and the island of Ireland offer the warmest of welcomes and great fun, as well as wonderful scenery and heritage. We are taking every opportunity to capitalise on the island of Ireland’s heightened profile around this St Patrick’s Day period.”
Tourism Ireland aims to capitalise on the heightened exposure for the island of Ireland around the globe on 17 March. The organisation wants to send a clear message that Northern Ireland and the island of Ireland is open for business again and that we cannot wait to welcome back visitors from across the globe.
Other events and activities taking place this week include:
· a reception in the House of Commons in London, celebrating British-Irish relations, sponsored by Tourism Ireland
· a special Irish Week in Milan, organised by Tourism Ireland – taking over the city with a series of events for the entire week, including an open-air photography exhibition featuring beautiful images from around the island of Ireland
· a concert with Kíla in the Centre Culturel Irlandais in Paris, on St Patrick’s Day, supported by Tourism Ireland
· a St Patrick’s B2B workshop in London – bringing together approximately 20 business tourism operators from the island of Ireland with key GB events agencies and corporate meeting planners
The festival will run on Ireland.com and on other digital channels – including YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter – in GB, the United States, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, the Nordics, Switzerland, Austria, Canada, the UAE and Australia.
