The Outing Festival | The Outing Festival

Essential Information About The Outing Festival

Queer Music, Matchmaking & Arts Festival

The Outing Festival was a totally new concept in 2012 created by the new Queen of matchmaking Eddie McGuinness, the festival is an addition to the popular and long-running Traditional Lisdoonvarna Matchmaking Festival in Lisdoonvarna which has been around for more than 170 years.

The Outing Festival has become the off-shoot of the traditional matchmaking festival and has its stand-alone weekend.

In 2019 after 7 years in Lisdoonvarna, The Outing Festival moves to a new location at The Inn at Dromoland Co.Clare, Ireland.

The Outing Festival will move to a new date in the LGBTQ+ calendar, to Love weekend “Valentines Weekend 14th-16th February 2025 this is the LGBTQ+ music festival to be at since we take over the new hotels on the grounds of Dromoland Castle, bars, and venues for the 3-day festival that weekend

In 2020, The Outing Festival, World’s Only Music, Matchmaking & Queer Arts Festival becomes an LGBTQ+ Not-for-Profit organisation with a full board of queer alternative artists, professionals, and volunteers will help bring to life for the 10th year bigger, better festival and with more entertainment and Queer Art.

Everyone is welcome! The festival calls singles, couples, and groups of friends – straight or gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and their friends – to The Outing Festival LGBTQ+ Matchmaking, Music & Queer Arts Festival for this fun-filled weekend. There’s no restriction (other than being over 18 years of age) on this inclusive and entertaining twist on an old tradition. And of course, there are matchmaking, blind dates, and speed dating aspects for singles too. We’ve put together a line-up of acts and entertainment that this festival in the Hidden Hearts Lands of Co. Clare, Ireland you won’t soon forget and we’d be delighted to share them with you and your friends, whoever you are!

The Outing Festival is LGBT+ Festival (Lesbian, Gay, Bi and trans plus community festival)
The Outing Festival CLG. is a Not-For-Profit organisation and professional and volunteer-led, collective, working to promote the positive visibility of LGBTQ+ people and their community in the west of Ireland. Not-For-Profit Festival with Pride at its heart.
The Outing Festival is a Queer Matchmaking, Music & Arts Festival.
The Outing Festival mission is to celebrate the diverse culture of the LGBT+ community, by providing Ireland and the west of Ireland community with various activities and functions to promote and engage in matchmaking, queer arts, music, sports, educational, civic, and cultural activities in order to enrich the lives of LGBTQ+ people and the community as a whole and to work together to achieve a common goal.

We work with both LGBT+ and non-LGBT+ organisations from Ireland and beyond to create a weekend that brings the entire community together in a fun and engaging ways that help enrich their lives.
Provide a space of safety for individuals to celebrate their individuality and sameness.

In 2025 we’re giving you an even bigger weekend of jam-packed entertainment full of traditional activities with a twist. We really are making this weekend available to everyone and we are sure that our fantastic lineup will leave everyone smiling, just like the last 12 years.

Over the weekend festival, we have several live acts including comedy evenings, theatre shows, and live Céile. Coming back for an even bigger show will be some of the artists in 2025 watch this space.

A weekend like this wouldn’t be complete without a night full of clubbing! And these aren’t just any club nights! We’re bringing you a selection of Ireland’s and Europe’s best gay clubs and DJs and taking them on tour with us. Expect the unexpected, and not just in one but four areas. On these nights, there will be a battle between several DJs, dancers, and performers. Entertainment for one and all!

To let you brush over your hangover, we’ve teamed up with local tourist companies, restaurants, and shops to offer you the best discounts on some of Ireland’s most popular tourist attractions and activities. From visits and picnics to outdoor activities with Wet & Wild Sports Club all the way through to rock climbing, we’ve got you covered. Check out our full list of attractions/activities here. (https://www.theouting.ie/local-activities/)

Make sure you bring your best dresses (boys too) as we will be holding blind dates, speed dating, ice breakers, tea dances, céilí dances, and who knows, we might even teach you how to gay square dance! Oh, and did we mention that the whole weekend is hosted by our very own Queen of Matchmaking Eddie McGuinness

He’s expected to rustle up some trouble! If that doesn’t make it the best matchmaking and music festival on the planet, we don’t know what does!

Safe Sex at The Outing

The Outing Music, Matchmaking & Queer Arts Festival is committed to education about safer sex practices and has worked with GOSHH plus the Gay Health Network (www.ghn.ie) and Mpower, who offer HIV and sexual health information to gay and bisexual men, and other men who have sex with men. Find them on Facebook here or follow them on Twitter at @GOSHH @Man2ManIreland also visit www.Man2Man.ie & www.GOSHH.ie

The Outing Music, Matchmaking & Queer Arts Festival will have lots of safer sex packs in all areas of the hotel, venues, and events throughout this year’s festival. If you’d like a free pack just ask at The Outing Festival desk in The Inn at Dromoland Hotel.

The ‘Why’ and ‘How’ of Pacing

Lots of things affect the pace at which we drink, like our drinking culture and the extent to which we buy in ‘rounds’, the people we are drinking with, whether we are drinking when eating, our mood and various other factors.

We have all probably heard of ‘binge’ drinking, but what is a binge?

The World Health Organisation has defined binge drinking as drinking six or more standard drinks (about 3 pints of beer) during one drinking occasion. However some researchers have argued against this definition. As this level of consumption could occur over the course of an evening of eating and socialising they argue it is inappropriate to equate it with a binge.

Whatever the definition, new research suggests that drinking to drunkenness and repeatedly subjecting the brain to the effects of withdrawal from the presence of large doses of alcohol i.e. having what people would term drinking ‘binges’, could damage brain cells even more than continuous drinking.

Find out more info here www.drinkaware.ie

Design And Photography Credits

We would like to thank the following professionals and volunteers who have contributed their fantastic design, photography, and printing skills to our website and promotional materials and festival from 2012 to present day:

EMcG PR & Events Team for all Public Relations, Event management, and web content. 2012- present www.emcgpr.com

Fiona Thompson & Josh Ellul Social Media Content & Visuals plus Filming The Outing Queer Arts Collective.

Gary Duffy Knot Normal Design & Craft (For branding, festival props, visual displays 2017/18/19/20/21/22/23/24) https://kncrafts.com

Eamonn Ward (Press & Promotional Photography 2014/15/16/17/18/19/23/24)

Will St.Ledger for New Brand style & Design in 2017

Carlos Molina Rodrigo at EMcG PR & Events (for updated logo design and visuals 2014/15/16)

Edward McCready, CoolMoss Creative Agency (The Outing website design 2014)

Samuel Rodrigues (Press & Promotional Photography & Video 2014-16 & 2019/23)

Paddy Hogan – New Website Design For The Outing Festival 2019/20

Yvonne McArdle & Eddie McGuinness Street Art & Design in Lisdoonvarna & Area

Eddie McGuinness (Clare Images 2013-2015)

Real Print, Reads.ie (Promotional Material Printing)

Eddie McGuinness & Dónal Mulligan (for co-design on original branding, logo & visual design 2012)

Cian Markey (Press & Promotional Photography 2013)

Sponsorship

The Outing Festival team want to thank all of our partners & sponsors for being so generous and for helping us make The Outing Festival a success for over 10 years.

Our current partners are listed throughout the site. If you would like to get involved with The Outing Festival we would love to hear from you! Please email [email protected] for more information.

To request a sponsorship pack please email us with the subject title “Request for Sponsorship Pack” and we will send one on to you in no time. Come Share the Love.