Pixie party on St Patrick's Day - are you in?

WHAT a week I've had, saying I have been mad busy in work would be an understatement. While I have been keeping up with my 365 project (bar Monday or was it Tuesday when I had to buy a replacement lens following a mishap at last weekend's Irish Blog Awards Photomeet), I have not found time to actually post about the awards, the wonderful hotel , the wonderful staff at the wonderful hotel, the photowalk, etc etc; all of those will be done to some degree in the coming days.

But I had to post this evening about Pixie's big St Patrick's Day goings-on.

Marcus from Pixie has managed to get some amazing things together for bloggers and photobloggers on St Patrick's Day (Dublin), check this list out.

* 20 bloggers and photobloggers will be invited to watch the St Patrick's Festival parade from a vetted viewing area. Each will be given an official wristband to gain access to this exclusive VIP area.
* 4 bloggers and photobloggers will be invited to watch the parade from the Festival Grandstand.
* 2 photobloggers will be invited to join the world media and take photos of the parade from the elevated position from the official open topped Media Bus which is positioned on the parade route.
* 2 Pixie users will chosen (subject to a security check) and given a Golden Pass which provides exclusive access to the parade route on the day. Only 12 Golden Passes will be issued this year to the international media and this is the first time photographers outside of the national and international media have been invited on into the parade route. This is HUGE.

This is HUGE, absolutely massive in fact and all you have to do to be in with a chance of getting seriously up close and personal shots of the parade without a gaggle of people in front of you is to blog about it (and link to the Pixie blog post on the big day), tweet about it or retweet @stpatricksfest.

After all the fun of the day those taking part are being invited to "continue the Pixie Party after the parade and join in the fun at the Guinness Storehouse's annual Paddy's Day festival". As well as that there are also prizes for the photographs that best capture the spirit of the festival (sponsored kindly by Canon).

You can count me in, it certainly beats trying to take pics past grown men who manage to squeeze their way past children to the front ;) Well done to Marcus, this is brilliant.

St Patrick's Day, Dublin 2008

WELL the weather held for St Patrick's Day yesterday in Dublin and although it was cold the sun was shining on the thousands of people lining the streets for the parade.

Unless you have a good vantage spot the parade is actually a frustrating time of being squashed and looking at the back of people's heads. I have also never been able to work out those adults who push their way to the front. Okay if you have children and want to keep a close eye on them but if you are an adult and by pushing to the front have prevented a child from seeing all the fun, shame on you. You might as well start mugging children for their sweets.

The Young Wan may be 16 years old now, but is still entitled to see some of the action and not the back of this very inconsiderate man who couldn't keep to the one spot. Any time there was a break in heads meaning that we were actually able at points here and there to see the parade, he, despite being at the front, would shift his head to the only available free spot. Nice. This is a yearly occurrence and one that I find amazing each year.

I was also floored by the very large older man who brought a step ladder for the kids with him. He was behind the Young Wan, the next time I looked he had shifted her over until she was behind him. Seriously what is with that?

So after a frustrating 45 mins we headed home and had a better vantage point at one of the barriers put up to stop people cutting onto the parade route.

But fair play to all the participants, those who made the costumes and floats and all the organisers. Despite not seeing that much, what I did manage to catch a glimpse of was fantastic. Some images are already on Flickr and I'll finish uploading the rest this evening as well as putting some up on pix.ie.