It's being billed as Ireland's longest running festival.Duration that is, not age, seeing as Summerval is in it's first year and only launched last night.
Summerval is the hot relative of it's cool cousin Winterval as organisers say they realised the potential to expand the brand and build on the success of Ireland's biggest Winter festival.
The Waterford based festival is running every weekend from 24th June until 4th September. For 10 weeks the city and county will host family activities, sporting events, live music, art and festival workshops and free music.
Speaking at the launch of Summerval, Chairman Barry Monaghan said “Summerval will champion and celebrate the very best of Waterford City and its immediate surroundings every weekend over the course of the entire summer. Our team has worked hard to create a spectacular new programme of activities to compliment the many excellent existing festivals so as to give a national audience a reason to visit Waterford any weekend of the Summer.
Our main aim is to showcase the talent, diversity and fun that Waterford has to offer to everyone with the same Summerval events every weekend of the Summer – young and old and to send them home with a smile on their face and a desire to return!”
Barry added “Summerval events will complement the many existing events and festivals in Waterford during the Summer such as the Tramore Promenade festival, Dunmore Food and Bluegrass Festivals, Viking Marathon, Daytripper, Tramore Racing Festival, Waterford Walls and of course the internationally acclaimed Spraoi Festival.
This means that for many weekends of the Summer there’s more than just one reason to visit the Sunny South East and to realise the promise of ‘Summer Every Weekend’.
Summerval has been created and organized by the same team that has made Winterval Ireland’s biggest Christmas Festival.
While Winterval is specifically aimed at families, organisers hope Summerval will appeal to a more diverse audience promising 'something for everyone'.
The full programme of events is available at www.summerval.ie
