Lissadell bus fiasco

*shadow*

So 10 phone calls later and all I've been told is that the shuttle buses had to be booked in advance and they are now booked out for tonight's gig. [thanks for the pre-advanced warning]

I know that there are a number of people assuming that they can just jump on these shuttle buses from town but that appears not to be the case. So once again Sligo can't do anything right and now there is quiet a number of people left wondering how the hell we're suppose to make it to Lissadell tonight.

A park and ride service would have been useful..but nothing on that.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

corryworry

There is another shuttle bus service which I don't think is book in advance but i'm not 100%. It's at the drop of point in Carney village (no parking available there thou). - as far as i know it's €5 return.
I was looking into buses myself but now it turns out that there is 'ample' free parking within 10 min walk from the concert so I'm going ahead with this instead!
As you were looking for a park and ride I'd say your best bet is to head out to Lissadell and avail of the free parking!!

*shadow*

corryworry wrote: »

There is another shuttle bus service which I don't think is book in advance but i'm not 100%. It's at the drop of point in Carney village (no parking available there thou). - as far as i know it's €5 return.
I was looking into buses myself but now it turns out that there is 'ample' free parking within 10 min walk from the concert so I'm going ahead with this instead!
As you were looking for a park and ride I'd say your best bet is to head out to Lissadell and avail of the free parking!!

We're relying on being dropped off and our lift isn't allowed near the venue or to Carney as far as I know. It would have been less hastle going up to Dublin to see them. Sligo aren't really doing themselves any favours as usual.

Basq

*shadow* wrote: »

Sligo aren't really doing themselves any favours as usual.

Well.. what did you expect to happen?

You were informed:

*shadow* wrote: »

So 10 phone calls later and all I've been told is that the shuttle buses had to be booked in advance and they are now booked out for tonight's gig. [thanks for the pre-advanced warning]

This type of thing should have really been investigated at least a week or two back. How'd ya think they got booked out? People phoned to investigate, and I'm sure they were advertised.

Absolutely no offence to yourself.. but it's no-one's fault but your own.

bennyc

In fairness this info was out there all week, you booked a bus and the time you booked for was the only bus you can take. Your best bet if not driving is to get a Taxi to OX Field and there is another bus service from there for a couple of euro. There will be a Taxi pick up from the same point in OX Field so I imagine the same small bus service to the Taxi pick up will be in place.

In my opinion they are so far doing a great job, they advised as much as possible to book a bus then for those like myself who had accepted traffic jams and a long wait after to get home , they are now saying ample parking so hopefully it wont be too bad.

Either way I have a picnic basket in the boot of the car in case we are sitting for 2 hours with the kids on the way home tonight.

Basq

Surely a bit late now..

.. but heard mention of a park and ride service on the radio this evening.

magnumlady

I've been reading that the shuttle buses were a joke. Poor people still waiting at 1am to get a bus out of there.

UrbanSea

basquille wrote: »

Well.. what did you expect to happen?

You were informed:



This type of thing should have really been investigated at least a week or two back. How'd ya think they got booked out? People phoned to investigate, and I'm sure they were advertised.

Absolutely no offence to yourself.. but it's no-one's fault but your own.

As far as I'm aware they were advertised on the radio,and posters were dropped into work here where the public would see them,that mentioned that it must be booked.

EverEvolving

magnumlady wrote: »

I've been reading that the shuttle buses were a joke. Poor people still waiting at 1am to get a bus out of there.

==

Yes, I got home at 2:15am after having to walk to the road from the venue. There was no organisation whatsoever, buses that had gotten in couldn't get out and people had no idea what was happening. It was ridiculous to say the least. Also, the place was very badly lit so people couldnt see where they were going.

Now, I expect there to be some transport delays after a concert of that magnitude but this was a joke, I got to Dublin from Slane quicker than I got back to Sligo from Lisadell :mad:

UrbanSea

I heard the security were awful. Knackers telling women with hysterical children to **** off.

Betsy18

i paid for a bus from Bundoran to Lissadell return last nite. we were told by our bus driver that we were to meet him at 11pm in the car park. now the concert didnt finish to 10.50pm but we left early just to be on time for the bus! we ended up being trapped in a crowd when the stewards closed the gates to get out to the carpark and only let a few people out at a time!we were standing a the crowd with about 100/150 people in front of us watching our bus pull out of the carpark with only half a load on!!people started jumping over walls and barriers and running thru fields to try and run after buses!!it was mayhem! after about 1 hour being kept outta the carpark we were let in to find that all buses were full and no buses for donegal at all!! nobody knew what was happening the stewards were rude and obnoxious and would not tell us anything! we were physically pushed and roared at by them. the one decent steward among them told us that he had worked at all concerts oxygen,picnic etc and this was the worst organised he had ever seen in 14 years in the job!!

we were moved from top to bottom of the carpark, children were crying, women were crying and collapsing. after lots of arguing we were eventually pushed outta the carpark and made walk the 2/3 miles in the pitch dark relying on the lights of mobile phones to guide our path until we made it to the crossroads where a fleet on buses were only to discover 1 bus for donegal which was overloaded and all the other buses for sligo!

we were left stranded at the side of the road with stewards trying to persuade bus drivers with empty buses to take us home. they would do it but wanted a fee of €15 pp after us paying for our tickets already! we refused this and were thrown off the bus! in the end up at 2.40am a gentleman of a bus eireann driver agreed to take us home free of charge.

i am now making a formal complaint to Discover Sligo, and the organiser of the concert and looking for a full refund for the distress that this caused. i watched a pregnant woman collapse and possibly suffering from a miscarraige being lifted into an ambulance and rushed to hospital due to the distress that was caused to her and the walk in the dark which we were forced to undertake!

we really enjoyed the westlife concert but this disaster ruined all our nite. 20 people made it to their homes at 3am this morning. we would have been home sooner from Dublin! Discover Sligo i don't think i want to see it for a long time!!:mad:

Truley

Jesus Betsy that sound absolutely horrific! I've heard similar stories from my own friends this morning, one friend told me she's even considering skipping the Leonard Coen concert despite having tickets. Purely due to the hassle she went through last night.

Xiney

:eek:

shocking

corryworry

Oh My God, Betsy that sounds horrific. I think it's awful that the free parking was only announced earlier this week - after they had given the impression that there was to be no parking whatsoever. I was just lucky that I hadn't decided on which bus to get and seen in the Sligo Weekender on Tuesday that there was parking.
I have to say, it went pretty smoothly for us. We parked in the Red Car Park (muddy field) which was not overcrowded at all, much fewer cars than I would have expected.
We had about a 10 min walk which was lit up on the way back. Once we got back into the car it did take about 20 mins to get out of the field (no stewards directing traffic at all) but after that we didn't get stuck in traffic at all, lot's of guards around the roads and plenty of flashing blue nights.
It seems that the shuttle buses organised by Discover Sligo were the biggest disaster. Hope you get your money back at least Betsy

Betsy18

it was a complete disaster guys! i tried for over half an hour today to get through to Discover Sligo, eventually got speaking to a girl who i actually felt sorry for as she said the phones had been hopping all morning with people making complaints. she said the issue is now with management and they would take my details and a manager would contact me on Monday when the weekend has died down!! she apologised for what happened even though it wasnt her fault but she did admit that the stewards were taking in for this event only and had only been briefed on the parking arrangements 2 hours before the event!!!!:eek:


i'll wait now to see how things go on Monday but they havent heard the end of it yet!!

ge_ch

as far as i know the organiser is the same that organises electric picnic.
you would expect them to be better prepared with all their experience.
i work nearby and know lots of people living in the area. they were saying that the traffic system that would have been in order wasnt followed by the stuarts.
regarding the buses its the hired companies that are to hold responsible. in their defence i have to say though that they were stormed by all the people trying to get on and thats why they had to be moved out to the road
i have a few friends that were at the concert and had no problems at all, but also heard that some people were still left stranded at 4am

*shadow*

Thought that this thread should be started to gauge a true idea of how badly organised the event was with regards the buses.

We waited 2 hours in the bus pick up area with thousands of other people. There was complete chaos and no one was controlling the situation. Security were laughing and shrugging their shoulders saying it wasn't there fault and they gave us no direction as to what we should do. The only person that tried to maintain some form of crowd control was a tall guy in a suit who kept trying to reassure people they'd get a bus.

There were no Gardai around for almost an hour and they didn't turn up until we started ringing them to report the situation. When they did turn up they did nothing.

After 2 hours of waiting a few hundred of us set off walking down the small narrow unlit road [about a mile and a half - 2 mile walk] to the crossroads where over 50 buses were lined up. This road was pitch dark and we couldn't even see the ground, a cop car sped past us at one point rather than helping to ensure our safety by perhaps driving in front to light up the way or by dispersing cops throughout the crowd with torches.

Along the way we met a guy who was working at the event who said he was in complete shock at the organisation and that he was going to refuse to work at the event on the Saturday and Sunday. He also said that it was clear the road couldn't cope with such a vast volume of buses and that the event should never have been allowed without this issue being addressed.

We eventually made it to the cross roads were we managed to find a a very very helpful Fury's bus and the driver explained that he had been in the first group that should have drove into the bus pick up area but that the organisers had made him reverse back to allow the hotel buses in first. We waited on the bus to try and fill it and after half an hour thousands of people were walking past. The people that got on our bus said that the stewards had eventually stopped discouraging people from walking and just told them their only way of getting home would be to head off walking to the crossroads.

I have a quote from Ocean fm earlier that day where a woman strongly discouraged people from walking on these roads as they were too dangerous she also said that it was a terribly long walk to do and that you'd have to be in training to do it. Why then were thousands of people including young children, the elderly, pregnant women and the disabled forced to do so? And why did the Gardai completely fail us by not attempting to take control of the situation?

This was the worse run concert I have ever attended, even after the event finished there was no announcement about safety precautions and which exits to use like there has been at every other event I've ever attended. There were even unlit areas at this point as we made our way to the bus pick up area..how hard would it have been to have put a few generator powered lights along the path way leading out to the bus area?

I'm completely disgusted and dismayed over what has happened. It spoilt what should have been a family friendly night and what was a great gig. Sligo had a chance to prove itself and it failed miserably.

I'm definitely making a formal complaint about this and this story is going national. I'm just completely stunned by it all.

The purpose of this thread is not to start an argument. For those driving to and from the event I've been told the traffic management was excellent however for those of us availing of the bus services it was a different story and this event cannot be downplayed.

We didn't get home till after 3am and we live in Sligo. I've gotten home from Gigs in Dublin and Galway earlier than that.

I'm also curious is there anyone out there who attended the Leonard Cohen concerts and was there the same chaos at the bus pick up area for them?

*shadow*

basquille wrote: »

Well.. what did you expect to happen?

You were informed:



This type of thing should have really been investigated at least a week or two back. How'd ya think they got booked out? People phoned to investigate, and I'm sure they were advertised.

Absolutely no offence to yourself.. but it's no-one's fault but your own.

Yeah I was really foolish to think that when we were told there would be a shuttle bus service that would mean paying on arrival like it does everywhere else in the country. Instead Sligo's idea of a shuttle bus was a prepaid coach.

Clearly I was not the only one to take this for granted. I met numerous other people who believed that they could just grab a shuttle bus from town to the venue and there were many girls in floods of tears when they found out this wasn't the case and they were turned away from buses.

Luckily Furrey's, Feehilys and dail a bus were operating a service for those of us with the more universal view to what defines a shuttle bus.

This however as we now know was just the start of what turned into a completely chaotic night for those of us availing of buses.

oscarBravo

Just back in Westport from Leonard Cohen. We left during the closing number (I thought he had finished with the previous one), walked along well-lit paths with helpful stewards constantly pointing out the way. Got to where the coach had dropped us earlier, where lots of coaches were waiting - we had to wait maybe two minutes while a couple of them maneouvred (during which time I bought a hot chocolate), then we were bundled onto a waiting coach, which took off within five minutes and dropped us straight back into Sligo.

My experience couldn't be much different from yours.

*shadow*

oscarBravo wrote: »

Just back in Westport from Leonard Cohen. We left during the closing number (I thought he had finished with the previous one), walked along well-lit paths with helpful stewards constantly pointing out the way. Got to where the coach had dropped us earlier, where lots of coaches were waiting - we had to wait maybe two minutes while a couple of them maneouvred (during which time I bought a hot chocolate), then we were bundled onto a waiting coach, which took off within five minutes and dropped us straight back into Sligo.

My experience couldn't be much different from yours.

Wow well that's actually good to hear though..it means they learned from Friday night's mistake and it also proves that if the organisation was put into it on Friday then the whole chaotic situation could have been averted?

However I wonder did people that left after the closing number get coaches too??

magnumlady

Friday night sounded dreadful. I would let the local media know because from what I gather they think things went very smoothly.

*shadow*

magnumlady wrote: »

Friday night sounded dreadful. I would let the local media know because from what I gather they think things went very smoothly.

Yeah we certainly are. We're letting the national media know. Sligo will only want to cover this up. I still can't get my head around how this was let happen

teddybear73

*shadow* wrote: »

Yeah we certainly are. We're letting the national media know. Sligo will only want to cover this up. I still can't get my head around how this was let happen

Its typical of people nowadays to just go off and moan to Joe Duffy if everything isnt up to a level of standard that may be impossible to achieve. Anyone going to concerts regularly will know there are teething problems at venues especially ones that are new and un tested never mind 5 miles off the main drag. It is the way we Irish are becoming a nation of moaners and begrudgers that does my head in.

btw on the way to the Leonard Cohen concert yesterday Ocean FM did mention there had been problems with the busses at Westlife and that they had all night meetings to rectify the problems and it did seem to move better last night but everyone expects to leave a concert and that there will be enough busses to handle 10,000 people all leaving at once.

teddybear73

I cant understand the mentality of people who think you can just arrange hundreds of buses at a moments notice and just turn up on the day and think everything will run smoothly. They then moan when everything goes pearshapped due to people wanting buses on the way home that were not planned for. I would hazard a guess that if eceryone had to avail of prebooking giving organisers an idea how many wanted bus travel then there wouldnt have been the probs afterwards.
Its not like in Dublin where you have option of hiring double deckers that take 150 people at a time like at Oxegen.

*shadow*

teddybear73 wrote: »

Its typical of people nowadays to just go off and moan to Joe Duffy if everything isnt up to a level of standard that may be impossible to achieve. Anyone going to concerts regularly will know there are teething problems at venues especially ones that are new and un tested never mind 5 miles off the main drag. It is the way we Irish are becoming a nation of moaners and begrudgers that does my head in.

btw on the way to the Leonard Cohen concert yesterday Ocean FM did mention there had been problems with the busses at Westlife and that they had all night meetings to rectify the problems and it did seem to move better last night but everyone expects to leave a concert and that there will be enough busses to handle 10,000 people all leaving at once.

I'm happy they rectified the problem but that doesn't excuse Friday night and I would hardly call making young children and elderly people walk miles in the dark a teething problem and I've certainly never in my whole life been to a concert that lacked this amount of organisation afterwards. Irish people moan too much and do nothing about it so lets actually do something about it this time.

There should have been a plan in place to deal with the situation or failing that the Gardaí should have acted on the night to ensure our safety, at the very least escorting us down the dark road would have been a nice start, or maybe turning up to control the crowd before we all had to start ringing them and begging them to come down.

Fine they may not have foreseen that this situation would arise but that does not excuse the way they reacted on the night.

EverEvolving

teddybear73 wrote: »

I cant understand the mentality of people who think you can just arrange hundreds of buses at a moments notice and just turn up on the day and think everything will run smoothly. They then moan when everything goes pearshapped due to people wanting buses on the way home that were not planned for. I would hazard a guess that if eceryone had to avail of prebooking giving organisers an idea how many wanted bus travel then there wouldnt have been the probs afterwards.
Its not like in Dublin where you have option of hiring double deckers that take 150 people at a time like at Oxegen.

Discover Sligo had all pre bookings and they still couldn't manage the volume they already knew about - it was seriously badly run, nobody was there to give information as to where and when we were to get the buses, there wasn't even a queue, it was just thousands of people not having a clue what was going on. Only saving grace is that it didn't get rowdy at any stage or there would have been total chaos. I felt so sorry for the volunteers as they hadn't a notion either and were getting the lugs chewed a them!

EverEvolving

I wouldn't have minded the wait - in fact I expected it, if there was some sort of organisation or if anybody knew what was happening. It was total lack of planning, how could they not know this was going to happen? They would have known from the amount of cars that were parked the volume of drivers, even estimating 5 in each car, the discover sligo buses had pre booked numbers, bus eireann had figures also as they were only taking people with tickets. These are the first things that should be thought of. Also the lighting was very poor and people couldn't see where they were going.

I'm glad they resolved it for the Cohen gigs as it would be a terrible impression of Sligo to leave on even more people.

Sorry about second message - thought I was in a different thread

bennyc

I really do hope they sorted it for last night, I was in Slane for Oasis last year where thousands were left stranded and also crushed on the way in. I was lucky there again and didnt notice any of the hassle.

*shadow*

Does anyone know who exactly the event organisers were? Was it MCD or POD?

Basq

I knew last night would go smoother..

.. I've been saying ever since the concert was announced that I felt sorry for anyone going to Westlife as that would be the night of teething problems.

TequilaMockingBird

It was more than teething problems Basquille. I was babysitting for friends, they got back to Sligo town at 2am ONLY because a bus driver heading for Donegal saw their 10 year old getting crushed in the crowd and let them on.

It sounds like it was a nightmare.

My daughter was meant to go, I'm so glad now she didn't.