A record 1.8 million people joined attended the Winterval Festival in Waterford in 2024, it's been revealed

These figures were calculated by digital counters across the city during (after removing the local population percentage).

Having just celebrated its first year under the title of European City of Christmas and the 12th year of the Winterval celebration, the visitor numbers broke all records and all goals set by its two festival directors for 2024.

The data was collected via a smart city data collection, operated by Three Data Analytics on behalf of Waterford City and County Council.

The city was able to view the number of unique visitors to the area who have a mobile phone, thus ensuring each person counted was done so on a unique basis.

Festival directors John Grubb and Trevor Darmody said that they set out with “some major ambitions” to deliver a magical and fun filled festival.

John and Trevor spoke to Damien about the huge success of the 2024 event on 'Deise Today' this morning (Thursday).

You can listen back to the piece by clicking on the image above...