Irish Eyes Will Smile, and Your Bum Will Be Happy, Too

The Michigan Irish Music Festival, which runs Friday-Sunday in Muskegon, features three days of Celtic music and portable restroom facilities that feel like home. (Photo: Michigan Irish Music Festival)

____________________________

Pshaw, you say. The posh portable potties alone make the Michigan Irish Music Festival worth a six-hour round trip to Muskegon?

This is no, ahem, bum steer.

Festival organizers recognized that using the often stinky temporary facilities can be awkward, if not so traumatic as to cause festivalgoers to flee for the comforts of their own homes. So they organized a cadre of 16 volunteer powder-room technicians who will make sure where festivalgoers set their tooshies is literally fresh as a daisy, MLive/The Muskegon Chronicle reports.

Head powder-room technician Cheryl Genson said fresh flowers, hand soaps, mirrors and other personal hygiene items will be restocked when the facilities are cleaned and wiped down hourly.

“It’s the best place to work, because everyone loves you,” she said. “We try to make it better every year.”

Organizers didn’t opt for cheap, merely functional jax, as the Irish would say.

Rather, the 65 top-of-the-line portable facilities offer hot-and-cold running water, the privacy of thick canopy tenting, mirrors and lighting. A local company, Muskegon Plumbing, hooked up the water at no charge.

Festival board members addressed the delicate topic of sanitary conditions at the portable johns in 2010 when they were kicking around ideas that would cause festival-goers to linger longer.

More frequent cleaning in the years since has made “a huge difference in how long people stay,” festival president Chris Zahrt said. “It’s helped increase food and beverage sales.”

The idea has been a big hit with organizers of other large festivals across the Midwest who adopted it after it was presented three years ago at North American Irish and Celtic Festival Organizers Association.

The festival runs through Sunday.