An 11-woman Irish traditional music collective that spent the weekend opening for Ed Sheeran at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey will perform in Kansas City on September 6 at Kansas City Irish Fest. BIIRD performs at 7 p.m. that Sunday on the festival's Boulevard Stage, immediately ahead of headliners The Elders, who go on at 8:30 p.m.
The whirlwind itinerary is part of BIIRD's North American tour, which has included stops in Toronto, Detroit and East Rutherford, New Jersey, according to the Kansas City Star. Founder Lisa Canny said Sheeran's invitation is what kicked off the group's run of American support shows, and the band also performed alongside Sheeran in Australia and New Zealand earlier this year, the paper reports. Depending on the engagement, BIIRD performs with anywhere between seven and 11 members.
Canny is no stranger to the road: she has traveled to the United States for about 15 years and has now visited 48 states, per the same account. She is also a seven-time All-Ireland champion on harp and banjo, credentials that trace back to a career that included international touring as lead vocalist with Celtic Crossroads and The Young Irelanders, according to ICMP Music School London. She formed BIIRD in 2024, assembling musicians and dancers from Ireland into what became an 11-piece act built around harp, banjo, fiddle, guitar, concertina, flute, cello, drums, vocals and dancing.
An Impromptu Pub Session Led to a World Tour
According to the Star, Ed Sheeran reached out to BIIRD about performing at a pop-up event in Wexford, Ireland roughly a year before the article's publication, and Sheeran's management then invited the group to tour with him following that Wexford performance. Sheeran himself invited BIIRD to join his world tour. That tour is now underway in North America as Sheeran's 2026 Loop Tour, on which he builds multi-instrumental backing tracks live using a custom loop pedal rig instead of a backing band, as Hoodline reported in its preview of his Detroit stop. That tour supports Sheeran's 2025 album Play and follows his $875.7 million Mathematics Tour.
Once BIIRD wraps its stadium dates with Sheeran, the tour shifts to standalone club and theater gigs in Boston, Pittsburgh, Nashville, Los Angeles and San Francisco, the Star notes. Keli O'Neill Wenzel said BIIRD is gaining international recognition well beyond the United States, a sign of how far the group's profile has traveled since its earliest days. That rise has been fast: BIIRD made its live debut before 10,000 people in London's Trafalgar Square on St. Patrick's Day 2024, despite the full 11-member lineup never having played together as a unit before stepping onstage, according to Business Times News. Several members reportedly had only met hours before that performance.
Bold Visuals Built for the Trad Stage
Onstage, BIIRD leans into an aesthetic that breaks from typical folk presentation, working with Irish fashion designers on dark tones, corsets and heavy eyeliner, per the same Business Times News report. The look is intentional: the band performs energetic traditional Irish music paired with striking visuals and distinctive clothing, and Canny has described spending years developing what outlets have called a “Spice Girls of trad” concept meant to reshape perceptions of women in traditional Irish music. According to research hosted by the University of Galway, scholars have documented and traced the absence of women's voices from Irish traditional dance music. A 2021 BBC report on research into Irish traditional music said the scene's mechanisms and structures continued to privilege men's contributions. The band has not yet released a record, though it is currently working on its first one.
What to Expect at Kansas City Irish Fest
Kansas City Irish Fest runs September 4-6 at Crown Center and Washington Park, at Pershing Road and Grand Boulevard, marking the festival's latest edition since it was established in 2003. The event operates from 5 to 11 p.m. Friday, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Saturday, and 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday, with Irish comedy shows scheduled for 6 and 8 p.m. Saturday alongside the usual mix of live entertainment, an Irish marketplace, a culture stage, a children's stage, art in the park, food, beer and Irish whiskeys.
Admission runs $30 on Friday and $35 on Saturday or Sunday through September 3, rising to $35 on Friday and $40 on Saturday or Sunday afterward. The festival accepts no cash payments, prohibits outside food, beverages, coolers and weapons, and allows only service animals. Organizers expect up to 75,000 visitors across the weekend, according to the Star's reporting, and related road closures around the festival grounds will run from 7 a.m. September 3 through 10 a.m. September 7.
Pulling off an event that size takes serious manpower: Kansas City Irish Fest relies on community volunteers across multiple stages featuring music, comedy and Irish dance, according to Wikipedia's entry on the festival. The festival itself grew out of a 2003 merger of two neighborhood celebrations, the Westport Irish Fest and the Brookside Irish Fest, a consolidation detailed by Flatland. This year's edition also carries municipal backing, after Kansas City's Neighborhood Planning & Development Committee recommended funding for the festival through the city's Neighborhood Tourism Development Fund this past spring, according to The Beacon. That fund supports local nonprofit events.
