The inaugural Celtic Festival opened yesterday with Neil Lennon doing the honours. The never done before event has intrigued us for some time and we were there yesterday morning to see the concept come to life.
The club have taken over the SEC for the weekend and you’re tickets scanned at the front of the building before you walk in with a green carpet greeting you.
When you walk into the main arena you have plenty of picture opportunities with large Celtic logos and balloons.
When you get into the arena, the Celtic Store is one of the first things you’ll come in contact with and it’s also the last thing you’ll also do as you leave for the day. The Superstore has a wide variety of merchandise and is heavily pushing the away jerseys.
At every corner of the arena, we seem to have photo opportunities with former Celtic players. Seeing Danny McGrain interacting with the younger fans was brilliant to see.
Tommy Johnson has probably never had a queue so big to see him in all of his life with supporters taking full advantage of the selfie with ex-Celtic players part of the event.
There is a lot for the kids to do; Crossbar challenge, commentate on a Celtic game with Celtic TV, Football tennis and darts along with inflatable games.
There are vendors at this event selling hot tubs (no not the tacky Celtic one), Holidays, Rugs etc.
The adults will find there are TWO bars at the event, one long bar which serves lager and cider along with spirits and also a gin bar.
Through at the back of the arena is two large pitches – one where the young players were put through their paces and another where kids could play.
The CelticView stage attracting a lot of older fans who are treated to stories from former Celts in live Q&As. Check out the lineup for the day and make sure to take a seat early if you want to partake in those.
Live Music playing Celtic songs all day also adds to the atmosphere.
Overall, it’s a good concept but the biggest drawback would have to be the constant queuing. While the selfie queues went down pretty quickly, if your child wanted to do a crossbar challenge or get a picture with the European Cup we had a 45-minute queue for a photo opportunity.
With the mass amount of people, you’re always going to expect to queue but everywhere you turned there was a queue you were having to negotiate past.
The main arena was also very warm so keep hydrated as you walk through the place.
This is a very good first attempt by Celtic and their organisers but with anything, there’s always going to be kinks to work out.
