The Samhlaiocht Easter Arts & Children's Bumble Bee Festival was a stunning success in 2007. Celebrating its fifteenth year of bringing the Arts to Kerry, the festival kicked off on Thursday, April 6th, with the opening of the Photography Exhibition in the Samhlaiocht Gallery on Lower Castle Street in the heart of Tralee.

Over the next four days of the Easter Weekend more than seventy events took place. The annual Samhlaiocht Easter Arts Festival Parade on Saturday night proved to be a particular high point, with wonderfully vibrant community groups, professional street entertainers and a fantastic fireworks display livening up the streets of Tralee with fun-filled, family entertainment.

Community Groups from all over Kerry were involved with Kerry Deaf Resource Centre, Action for Young People with Special Needs, St. Brigid's Community Centre, Oilean Beo & Austin Stacks Brennan Services and Blennerville Cubs, Scouts & Beavers taking part in the Kerry Group 5 Communities Project which provides funding for the individual groups to work with artists and designers on their costumes and parade paraphernalia.

Other groups involved in the parade include, Mitchell Zone, Shanakill Family Resources, Cois Farraige and Trasnet. The parade also featured internationally renowned professional street entertainment acts like MaSamba, The Fanzini Brothers, Cork Circus and Coconut Samba.

The Tesco sponsored fireworks display was used as a fundraiser for Temple Street Children's Hospital and Jessica Foley a 6 year old from Listowel, who is a patient of the hospital, had the wonderfully enjoyable task of pushing the button that launched the first volley of fireworks.

The Food and Craft fair was also exceedingly well received with over forty participants exhibiting their wares, turning the sports hall in the KDYS into a delightfully colourful market selling everything from chocolates to cheeses and from fine art to jewellery.

The Samhlaiocht Easter Arts & Children's Bumble Bee Festival had a distinctly musical quality to it this year with What the Good Thought, Poles Apart and The Camembert Quartet, from RTE's Tubridy Tonight playing gigs over the weekend.

Fifteen up and coming bands from Kerry played Rock for Experience which gives young bands the opportunity to perform in fromt of a huge live audience. Bands included Trench from Tralee, Blank from Tarbert, The Montegues from Castleisland, Titus Groan from Killarney, The End of Fox from Castlemaine and Stupid Betty from Ballyheigue.

Over twenty busking groups, which included many families and children as young as 6 to a gentleman "in his mid fifties", livened up the streets in the inaugural Samhlaiocht Busking Competition. Winners in this Tralee branch of the Vintners Federation of Ireland sponsored competition, were Andrew Crenbar-Harvey from Castlemaine and the McClintnock family from Beaufort who were presented with cash prizes of 300 euro and 200 euro respectively by VFI chairman Danny Lean. The competition was judged by Catriona Ni Shuilleabhain, of Glor Tire, the TG4 Country Music competition, fame.

And with poetry, photography, music, art, street theatre, drama, film and dance events taking place, not to mention workshops galore, the Samhlaiocht Easter Arts & Children's Bumble Bee Festival truly offered something for everyone.