Mullingar’s St Patrick’s Day parade is set to go global this year, becoming the first parade outside of Dublin to be streamed in its entirety live over the internet.
Westmeath people the world over will be able to watch all that’s happening throughout the day on either of two websites streaming the event, www.mullingarparade.ie or www.LiveTrad.com
“The live stream will be free to view as well as completely interactive,” says Ruth Illingworth, chairperson of the Mullingar’s St Patrick’s Day parade committee. “This means that viewers around the world will be able to send in messages which will be read out on air, as well as enjoying four hours of entertainment from the streets of Mullingar. It’s a great way for us to reach out to our ex-pat community around the world on St Patrick’s Day.”
The committee decided to stream the Mullingar parade as a means to show the spectacle to as many people as possible on the day. Tom Griffith of the committee added that, “Companies, clubs, and entertainment groups put a lot of work into their parade entries. So it’s great for them to know now that all their good work is being seen not only by the 35,000 people in the town on the day but all the other viewers looking in online as well. It’s an exciting addition to our parade which is now only possible because of LiveTrad and their technology and this wouldn’t even have been technically possible at all only a few years ago. So it’s fantastic.
“This is an opportunity for Mullingar to put itself in the shop window,” he says. “We’ll be pulling out all the stops between now and on St Patrick’s Day to ensure that the business, hospitality, and tourism sectors are fully tuned in to what we are planning, and to the potential exposure this worldwide webcast can give them. In challenging economic times, we need to think of innovative ways of getting our message out there. Live streaming is a really powerful medium, which we hope will bring Mullingar to new as well as old friends around the world.”
The live stream will be carried out by LiveTrad.com, a live streaming company which specialises in the live webstreaming of Irish cultural events. LiveTrad streams have been broadcast to over 50 countries around the world in the past two years, and several thousands of viewers can log on at a time.
Cameras will be positioned in the centre of town, recording all of the action which passes on the streets below. In addition, live commentary and interviews with some of the townspeople will be broadcast throughout the event.
The stream will be available to view from 2pm on St Patrick’s Day, and will end when the final parade floats have passed the main grandstand in the centre of Mullingar, at around 6pm.
