Donal’s point was that the event ended at 2.00pm, as it was scheduled to do. Many boats left at various times to avoid the weather, some actually stayed for an extra day – because 1. they were avoiding the adverse weather conditions 2. the crews were enjoying their time in our city.

The original post was typically begrudging. it didn’t mention Luases, organic dispersal of people or even organisation.

So while your argument is in fact a separate argument to Donal’s, I still disagree with you. A tremendous job was done in accommodating 1.15million visitors to the city centre. They may not have been great at communicating the effect of events on the final day. But the projected figures for the event were far below the amount of actual visitors. By all accounts the vast majority of people had a fantastic time.

Also, there’s allot worse things than being left without organised entertainment in Dublin City Centre. We have some of the finest city centre parks in the world, most of our museums are of a very high standard and are free, there are markets and street performers – all for FREE. But I’m sure you just went home in a state of begrudgery…

Paul, I was there from 12 o’clock expecting to see ships leaving in a parade as advertised along with the thousands of others who crammed into public transport to get there. When these people didn’t have the advertised events to see the powers that be realised belatedly that they would of course flock to the events that were left and they cancelled them in a panic. It is obvious to me and a lot of others that this was bad planning, call me a begrudger if you want but when a high profile event has a published schedule they should do their level best to keep to it and if not have provide an explanation as to why the schedule was accelerated. Then having to cancel the other events because of your schedule gaff means that you have a lot more people than expected is a complete and utter farce. Sticking your head in the sand Paul and saying everything is fine is precisely the attitude that has trashed this country, but hey if it works for you fair play ;)

Thanks for blaming the state of the country on me. I’ll try harder next time…

No wanting to get involved with your argument, but the shedule was correct. They started leaving at 10:40am as published. As with all big events in Ireland you have to get there early to get a good spot.!
http://www.sailtraininginternational.org/news/article/read_parade-of-sail-tomorrow_item_100760.htm

The Tall Ships Festival was definitely a big success…in many aspects! A LOT of work was done before the event to organise and plan it well and it attracted a huge amount of people without any problems. …But at the same time the termination of the festival at 14:00 was an absurd decision and probably one of the biggest FAILs in Irish event history.
The ships did NOT leave at 14:00 because of the weather and the festival was not declared as FINISHED at 14:00 because of the weather, but because – in their wisdom – the event organisers had seemingly no interest in continuing the festivities when their obligation (to the Tall Ship Race) was fulfilled. It was PLANNED to finish at 14:00, so comments here about the worsening weather conditions are – with all respect – nonsensical.
There was absolutely no need to end it all at 14:00. Sure the ships had left, but they were only the trigger for the event as far as most people were concerned. A nice backdrop, great decoration. But you can continue a street festival even without having tall ships in the Liffey. The Festival was massively advertised to attract people into the City, but on Sunday the visitors were let down. Not by the ships, they can leave whenever they want but by the local organisers of the festival. I know that some ships had left before the originally planned time and some people who wanted to seea big parade would gave been a little disappointed, but that would have been a minor upset.
It has been said here as well that the dispersal of the large amount of people would have been the reason for the 14:00 finish, but that argument is nonsense as well! Because on Saturday the party continued until 21:00 and the crowd still made it home without any problems.
Cancelling events (as far as I know only the “Rock the Boat” record attempt was outright cancelled) was surprising but you can live with it. Closing all concession stands at 14:00 and telling people over the speaker system constantly “…the festival has now finished” from 12:15 (it was later corrected) was disturbing the masses that just had arrived for a sunny afternoon in the City Centre. The outdoor live music stage in George’s Dock (that location was another big mistake, but that’s a different discussion) had entertainment on Saturday until 22:30, on Sunday it ended at 14:00!
The festival easily could have continued until 18:00, which would still have been 3-4 hours earlier than on Saturday. The impressive Amerigo Vespucci and our reliable Jeanie Johnston were still there, so there were still two tall ships for decoration.
It was a huge disappointment, albeit not a sudden surprise if people read the programme, but an odd and nonsensical decision to end the festival so early. Nevertheless the festival was great and showed that the Irish authority’s horror of large crowds is not justified. It would be great to have more similar festivals, but it’s now back to the unexciting St. Patrick’s Day Parade for Dublin’s “biggest” festival.
[Finally, a brief comment on the visitor numbers: It shouldn't really matter if 500,000 people were there or it 3mio people were there, but the numbers quoted are most likely totally arbitrary. It is close to impossible to guess or estimate such a crowd that is so dispersed over a huge area over 4 days, but the 1 or 1.15 mio claim is most likely just an invention of the event organisers. I'd say it was well below that figure. The Metro Area of Dublin (i.e. Greater Dublin) has a population of 1.8mio and the population of Ireland is 4.5mio. So a QUARTER of Ireland was allegedly at the festival? Hmmm.]

Joerg, i visited the Tall ships in the city Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and im sure many thousands more people did the same. Im a tourist from London and i also heard many english accents at the event aswell as many tourists from all over. The island of Ireland has 6.3 million people, i heard many many northern accents at the event. So figures released i well believe, if not underestimated. Thousads of people lined the coast of Dublin north and south on sunday to see them leave and the few hundred thousand that lined the Quays of the city.