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THEY are coming from near and far for the 2016 Koroit Irish Festival.
As it does each year, the festival is causing plenty of excitement around Koroit and the south-west.
But one of the things that has the festival organising committee so excited is the interest in the event from outside the region.
Koroit Irish Festival committee member, Leon Carey, said this years festival, the 20th, will have people from all over.
"Over the past few years we have stepped up our data collection on who is coming to the festival," Mr Carey said.
"We are finding there is a lot of people from outside the local area who have discovered the festival and really enjoy it. Our online sale numbers have almost doubled from last year. That is really encouraging for a couple of reasons. The large majority of those online bookings are from areas like Melbourne, Ballarat and Geelong. The other great thing is we are moving towards that goal of pre-selling as many tickets as we can online, it helps in the planning of the event and also streamlines the entry points at our gates."
Mr Carey said the festival is becoming a destination for groups. This year the festival has attracted two sizeable groups from Adelaide and over 40 female Gaelic football and Camogie players from Melbourne.
"We have a snapshot of our audience and we are targeting the right areas through our marketing and it is having success," Mr Carey said.
"We thing we have a great little festival here and we want to share it with as many people as we can. We get great support from the community, the Koroit Lions Club has been brilliant in their support of the event."
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Other community partnerships the festival engages in include the Koroit Kindergarten, the towns two primary schools, the historical society, friends of St Brigids, Woolsthorpe Primary School, the CFA, the SES, the bowls club, the football netball club, the Koroit Agricultural Society and the floral art group, among others.
“We have a great committee, everyone volunteers their time and efforts to the cause,” Mr Carey said.
“Having good community partnerships and great support from our sponsors helps ease the workload of the committee.
“Everyone gets in together and that’s why it works so well, it’s a team effort.”