The National Celtic Festival returns to Portarlington for the Queen’s Birthday weekend in June marking the 17th year of this popular event. This year the event looks set to be one of the best with some magnificent acts signed up to perform including Maggie Carty & Maririn Staunton, The Lumber Jills, The Maies, The Young Folk and Bush Gothic just to name a few performing over 14 stages.
The event attracts around 16,000 people to Portarlington and builds a fun festive atmosphere celebrating all things Celtic to the township that is usually a sleepy seaside town during the winter months. The town’s huge reserve houses much of the festival with market stalls, food, roaming entertainment and performance tents while many of the halls and local businesses including cafes, churches and the pub host some of the wonderful entertainment on offer.
This year for the first time the National Celtic Festival has partnered with the Australian Highland Cattle Society and are putting on the National Highland Cattle Show on the Sunday of the event, that will feature some amazing woolly and long horn highland cattle. There are expected to be around 60 of these magnificent creatures on show competing for a range of awards.
Entry to the festival village that includes the huge folk market, is by a gold coin donation and there are special wrist band purchases for entry to the ticketed performances that can be pre-booked before hand or at the festival village if not sold out prior to the performances.
