Waterford’s Winterval festival returns for 2022

Fiona Frawley

aerial shot of winterval festival in waterford

Ireland’s largest Christmas festival is back.

As Christmas market hysteria grips the country and we’re all in need more than ever of a bit of sparkle in our lives, the festive event of the year has made its triumphant return.

Winterval in Waterford City opened officially over the weekend, celebrating its 10th year with a Christmas parade and Santa Claus himself arriving in a gigantic bauble, Glinda the Good Witch style. He then joined his band of merry elves and the Mayor of Waterford Cllr John O’Leary in officially lighting up the festive season in Waterford as they switched on the city’s lights.

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The festival organisers are expecting 600,000 people to enjoy the Winterval Festival between now and Christmas Eve, delivering an economic contribution of €30 million.

Speaking at the launch, festival directors John Grubb and Trevor Darmody said:

There are six weeks of Winterval and we are expecting 100,000 festivalgoers for each of those weekends, we have 40 events on offer with 25 of those on offer for free, so there is plenty to see and do and room for crowds to enjoy the expanse of the festival and the city.

The expected economic boost from a breakdown of day trippers from outside of Waterford and from domestic overnight visitors would offer an economic boost to the City in the region of €30 million. The festival also created over 500 seasonal jobs directly plus multiple indirect jobs and we have hundreds of volunteers and community groups involved too.

This is all a huge economic boost to the city and is essential for what is typically an ‘off-season’ tourism time of the year and to support businesses that were greatly impacted during pandemic lockdowns.

Winterval Festival highlights include a gigantic and magical talking postbox with an elf post-collection show each weekend, magic mirrors and a host of free children’s workshops, a free shadow puppet show plus the magic lights of GLOW in New Street Gardens.

The Winterval Illuminates light show will be on offer every half hour, along with the ice rink on the city’s Quayside to the vintage Ferris wheel at Arundel Square, a vintage carousel, the Port of Waterford Eye, the Winterval Mini Express train, a virtual ride in Santa’s sleigh and a Wizard and Dragon interactive exhibition.

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Winterval organisers have also confirmed that furry friends won’t be left behind – Santa Paws will be in attendance doling out the gifts for all the good dogs and dogettes.

You can also expect live music, a World Cup fanzone, festive circus and of course, Santa himself will be in residence at his central station until 23rd December.

For more info on specific events, head to the Winterval 2022 WEBSITE.

Header image via Instagram/winterval_waterford