Europe’s oldest matchmaking festival is going gay for the first time this August.

Lisdoonvarna Matchmaking Festival in County Clare, Ireland, will invite gay singles looking for love for a weekend filled with parties and events.

It will also be the first matchmaking festival in the world for the LGBT community, the organizers have claimed.

Former Dublin Pride organizer Eddie McGuinness, who was pitched the idea by local hotelier Marcus White, told Gay Star News: ‘All of the local businesses have taken it really positively.

‘The festival usually brings 50,000 people and â‚¬2.5m ($3.22) to the town.’

Hoteliers and club owners are hoping for more than that this year as organizers say they have spotted a hole in the market.

McGuinness added: ‘At the end of the day people haven’t looked at the LGBT matchmaking market, there is traffic light dating in bars and clubs but no one else has thought of doing a festival.’

Willie Daly, the festival’s ‘matchmaking master’, will couple up the singletons.

‘This will be his first time matchmaking gays and lesbians, so the Drag High-Queen of Ireland, Panti, will be helping him out,’ McGuinness said.

Panti said: ‘I do love interfering in other people’s love lives so I can’t wait to get to Lisdoonvarna and start meddling.

‘It’s going to be great craic [party] and I expect to be buying quite a few ostentatious wedding hats afterwards.’

McGuiness explains the couples are paired through Daly’s ‘magical book’.

‘He gets you to write your details in it, he goes round talking to individuals and figures out who will be a good match, then he brings them together to talk,’ he said.

‘It’s about tradition because you used to need a chaperone to find your love in Ireland. That tradition has carried on.’

The soon to be annual weekend will promote the pending referendum on same-sex marriage in Ireland after the Constitution Convention voted 79% in favor of the law.

McGuinness said: ‘If people vote in favor it will change not only the law for same-sex marriage but also the constitution.

‘It will be the first place to do it in the world and The Outing weekend will support this.’

McGuinness plans to attract LGBTs worldwide to the event.

He said: ‘We are starting off with the Irish and UK market but will naturally build on the American and Asian market over the next five years’.

The Outing weekend will run from 30 August to 1 September.

For more information on the event and to buy tickets visit The Outing website.