The Kilkenny Arts Festival team wants our festival to be as welcoming as possible to as many people as possible. To do this, we have created a suite of resources for anyone to use when attending this year's Festival!
Our sensory packs are available to rent in the box office during the festival. You'll put down a €10 deposit that you will get back when you return the sensory pack. They contain ear defenders, a variety of fidgets, and a chewy. For sanitary reasons, you do not have to return the chewy, there will be a fresh one every time the bag is checked out.
If you want to book one in advance, please email boxoffice@kilkennyarts.ie
Our team has created social stories for each of our festival venues this year. You can use these to prepare yourself before a show. You can print this .pdf to help support the visual schedule further down this page, or you can go to our venue pages online where they also have this information.
Thanks to the generosity of the Edinburgh Fringe festival and artist, Tzipporah Johnston, we're able to launch our first-ever visual schedule. This can help you plan your visit to the Kilkenny Arts festival.
You can download and print black-and-white or color copies of the event squares and schedules from our website, or pick one up in the box office.
This year we will have a "Relaxed Start" every night for the Light up the Castle performances to minimize overstimulation. We ask all families who want to participate to please arrive at the right-hand side of the gates to the Castle Rose Garden by 9:40pm to be allowed entry at 9:45pm. You will be able to enter calmly and get settled in a special section by the fountain where you won't be jostled. Then, the music will start and slowly get louder until 10:15pm when everyone else will enter the garden. Then, you get to enjoy the show!
At the end of the show, we would recommend waiting for 5 minutes for the crowd to leave so that you do not get knocked into and do not have to hear yelling.
We would appreciate it if you would email our box office at boxoffice@kilkennyarts.ie ahead of the performance to make sure that we have enough space in the quiet area and so that we can make your experience as wonderful as possible!