The North Texas Irish Festival is moving from Fair Park to the North Texas Fairgrounds in Denton after 42 years at the South Dallas venue. The next event is scheduled for March 13-14, and the agreement for the new site was completed in recent weeks.
The North Texas Fairgrounds covers 33 acres and is less than 2 miles from downtown Denton. The festival is run by the nonprofit Southwest Celtic Music Association, and organizers said they had been considering other locations for several years.
The event began 43 years ago at an Oak Lawn bar that has since closed. Organizers expected about 80 people at the first gathering, but about 600 attended. In 1984, the festival shifted to Fair Park, where crowds often topped 30,000 before COVID shutdowns began in March 2020.
Sheri Bush, the association’s longtime president and the festival’s entertainment director, said Fair Park had been important to the event but that organizers felt a change was needed. “Fair Park has been our home for a long time, and we loved it, but it became untenable for a number of reasons,” Bush said.
Bush said a board member had pushed for talks with Denton for years, but organizers did not visit until May. John Hebley, the festival’s managing director for 25 years and the association’s treasurer, said organizers also had considered Arlington, Mansfield and Addison, while noting that many attendees have moved to Collin County in recent years.
