THE Mayor of Tralee has met with representatives of the Rose of Tralee Festival to discuss the positives and negatives of the event this year and dealing with issues in the future.

Yesterday morning, at a meeting of Tralee Municipal District councillors, Mayor Terry O’Brien said the Festival contributes enormously to the town and changes this year – including the addition of 32 Roses – brought more people into Tralee to stay, resulting in all the hotels and B&Bs being booked out.

He commended the Festival organisers, volunteers and the Council workers for making it such a successful event.

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However, he said issues arose this year with regard to street entertainment and the concerts in the Square and it was decided among the councillors to arrange a meeting with the Rose of Tralee festival about next year’s event.

“There were a couple of negatives this year, but I personally felt these were played upon,” said Mayor O’Brien. “There was a very negative social media campaign and there was an element who wanted to focus on one or two issues brought up and this was constantly regurgitated over and over again. I think that was unfortunate. We don’t want to shoot the goose that laid the golden egg. It [the Festival] is very important to Tralee and very important to Kerry,” he said.

Cllr Toireasa Ferris said the positives about the Festival greatly outweighed the negatives and when there are changes there is going to trial and error involved. She said many people take time off work to get involved with the Festival giving of their time for free and was she appalled at the level of abuse directed at volunteers for decisions that they did not make.

She commended all the volunteers involved. Cllr Ferris said lessons were learnt and she had a few small concerns she would like to discuss with the organisers, but overall the Festival is a huge asset to the county.

Cllr Norma Foley also commended the Festival and said the Women in Business aspect of the festival was fantastic. She also said there were a few decisions made which some would regard as mistakes, so the more consultation involved the better.

Cllr Graham Spring also commended the Festival, but said when there are any changes the business community in town needs to be consulted.

Mayor O’Brien met with representatives of the Rose Festival on Monday afternoon. He described it as a productive meeting where they discussed a number of issues, including putting a mechanism in place that when issues arose during the Festival, the Council would get involved and help the Festival resolve them as soon as possible.