Castlepalooza 2017

bodhrandude

I think what will likely happen is friends just chipping in for a crate, that will be the only way to work that out.

Ferris_Bueller

The more I think about it the drink policy is mad. No alcohol on sale anywhere after 10.00pm despite the music going on until 3.00am, 5 hours of not serving alcohol seems a bit over the top. Definitely going to try and sneak in a bottle of vodka and hopefully find a bag of tricks easy enough down there! Last year my bag got robbed on the first night with my drink in it, hopefully the lack of alcohol on sale doesn't encourage that again this year..

Cannot Cope

Says on website "When you're on site alcohol can be moved from arena to campsite & visa versa." so might work out cheaper in the long run

Whipping Boy

Bit of a joke last night. Wild Beasts finished @ 11.45PM and the only other thing on was Denney in the courtyard. Unsurprisingly this was absolutely rammed as it only holds 200 people max, so there was massive queues and a lot of annoyed people waiting outside.

How could they not have foreseen that? Why was there nothing else on at the same time?

Just as well Wild Beasts were the business

Choochtown

Unfortunately an absolute shambles of a festival regarding how it is organised.

1. Nowhere near enough camping space so the volunteer stewards were told to turn a blind eye when any arrivals after 7pm on Friday were forced to camp in the emergency lanes which were clearly marked and meant to be kept free for fire brigade or ambulance access. Whatever about any other points below this was not acceptable and never should be.

2. A ridiculous drinks policy. Minimum spend for the off licence was €50 and for the bar was €20!! (Yes I know pints were €5 but minimum spend for tokens was €20)

3. Big queues through security as they tried to find the smuggled alcohol. Everyone smuggled drink in due to point 2 above. My searcher got very annoyed as he couldn't find my vodka stash. Just to be spiteful he confiscated the free bottle of Pepsi that we were given at the gates even though it was still sealed. Everyone else was allowed to bring theirs through. No reason given other than "you can't bring it in because I said so".

4. No visible security anywhere near the campsite despite the fact that people with Friday day passes decided to stay all weekend and help themselves to any available empty tent. Obviously much cheaper just to throw camping and stages all into the same arena as there are less stewards needed.

5. This morning was a real feel of "we have your money now get the **** out". Only 1 food outlet open and they were only selling chips.

The whole festival had a feel of being done on the cheap even down to the majority of the acts being cheap/ free. Very few non-Irish acts or established (eg. have released an album) acts.

Having said all of that we had a great time!! I do at least 2 festivals a year but for €140 I will be looking elsewhere next year. A shame as I had heard great things about past Castlepaloozas.

Ferris_Bueller

Probably one of the worst organised festivals I've ever been to. Campsite was tiny and made it very squashed, people who arrived late had no idea where to camp and there were just tents all over the place. Not enough stages really either, as whipping boy said, the queue to get into the courtyard stage was huge every night as it can only hold so many people, then when I left Daithi in the big top stage on Saturday to go to the toilet I wasn't allowed back in as it was too full. We straight through the wristband/bags check at the entrance without being asked for a wristband and then when we arrived up at the arena were told we have to go back down to the entrance to get the wristbands. Alcohol policy was very weird but seems like a lot of people snuck drink in.

Having said all of that though I had a great weekend, extremely sound crowd of people at it and didn't see any scauldies or trouble all weekend. Weather was better than expected and it didn't rain much all weekend, handy that you can bring your drink wherever you want once you are in too. Had some very tasty food over the weekend too! Not sure if I will go again as that was my third Castlepalooza and I still can't decide what to make of it overall.

chuckbass

Like the above posters I had a good time but found it pretty shambolic in places.

My main gripes -
The campsites
I got there Friday evening and the place was pretty full, with tents pretty much on top of each other in the main areas, I found a spot by the boutique camping entrance, but the next day I met plenty of arrivals wandering around trying to find any kind of space at all. Seems like the kind of thing that would be easy to keep on top of or at least have an overflow space to open up if if gets too full, which it clearly was even on the Friday.

The castle
I've never been to this festival before, so perhaps it was been different in the past, but the impression the website gives is that there was plenty of stuff to wander around to in the castle - art, films, roaring fires and the like. There was only the penguin room which didn't open 'til 4.00pm (and an artists only room) and that closed at 10.00pm. I know there were workshops and the like in the big top stage during the day, so perhaps they have moved them to there, but it's not quite the same thing really. One of the main reasons I went was to hang out in a castle!

Alcohol
I was initially pissed off with the whole having to buy your cans onsite business, but given the layout of the place it worked out fine in the end. Being able to bring your cans anywhere meant I only bought two pints at the bar all weekend (cans aren't as nice obviously, but beer turns to sh*te after the first mouthful in those plastic glasses anyway). I've been to enough festivals to see the eejits getting completely bolloxed in the campsites with stacks of booze, so if the festival had a free-for-all policy I think it would be asking for trouble given the size of the place, or else they'd have to separate the campsite from the main area which would kill the vibe a bit.
But like another poster, I was annoyed at the twenty euro minimum spend with beer tokens. Considering pints were a fiver, and twenty quid bought me two strips of five tokens, I don't see why they couldn't have just sold five tokens for a tenner?

Friday timing
Main stage finishing at 1.00am, and only the tiny courtyard going after that? Seriously bad form, the place holds feckall, most people were stuck hanging around or dancing to the music playing from the main stage as the gear was taken away, or had to go back to their tents as there was nothing else to do. A lot of seriously pissed off people there, it's hardly the best start to a festival to have to call it an early night!

Refuse
I might be wrong on this, but I thought there were distinct recyclable and regular bins around the place on the Friday, which seemed to just give way to general waste bins from Saturday? Since so many were drinking from cans or plastic glasses I thought there would have been clearly marked bins for there instead of everything being dumped in together? (Again, I could be wrong on this, but I did have a fair old look around!)

My main praises -

The people
Everyone I met was really friendly and chatty (as 90% of people at any festival I've ever been to have been to be fair), I didn't see any maggot acting at all or anyone falling about obliterated drunk. The crowd seemed to be mainly twentysomethings up which may have had something to do with it (Independence can feel like a leaving cert disco gone awry sometimes), and with the size of the place lots of us buddied up as we kept running into each other.

Variety
When the festival was in full swing there was a nice variety of styles to chose from between the areas, the usual problem is having to chose what to see and what to miss. The 45 live dj's playing soul, funk, motown etc in the comedy tent were a nice contrast to the dance dj's in the courtyard. I loved both but it was nice to have a drunken sing along to northern soul belters!

Venue
When it worked it really worked, spending your weekends on the grounds of a castle is pretty sweet, especially when illuminated at night, it's a lovely sight!

Vibe
"Charged", "It's raw", "Indescribable" said that youngfella on the radio adverts.
Fortunately not one person I met there actually spoke like that. On the whole it was a great little festival, it was slow to get going in the afternoons but once it was it had a really casual, relaxed vibe. The stewards, security and staff were all sound and chatty, the site was pretty and on the whole there was plenty to do from maybe 5.00pm on. Always friendly peeps about to play table tennis/chat/dance with etc, great food options, short queues for the showers etc. I'm still not sure it was worth the price of the second tier ticket (€120) but I'd go back in a snap if I had an early bird.

Choochtown

Ferris_Bueller wrote: »

Probably one of the worst organised festivals I've ever been to. Campsite was tiny and made it very squashed, people who arrived late had no idea where to camp and there were just tents all over the place. Not enough stages really either, as whipping boy said, the queue to get into the courtyard stage was huge every night as it can only hold so many people, then when I left Daithi in the big top stage on Saturday to go to the toilet I wasn't allowed back in as it was too full. We straight through the wristband/bags check at the entrance without being asked for a wristband and then when we arrived up at the arena were told we have to go back down to the entrance to get the wristbands. Alcohol policy was very weird but seems like a lot of people snuck drink in.

Having said all of that though I had a great weekend, extremely sound crowd of people at it and didn't see any scauldies or trouble all weekend. Weather was better than expected and it didn't rain much all weekend, handy that you can bring your drink wherever you want once you are in too. Had some very tasty food over the weekend too! Not sure if I will go again as that was my third Castlepalooza and I still can't decide what to make of it overall.

Actually the Daithi overcrowding could have potentially caused a horrific accident which again highlights the scrimping on security to save money.
I saw about 20 people gain access through the side of the Big Top stage tent at about 3am by going through the "campsite" at the side and unscrew the large metal fencing to slip through. The fence was then left precariously hanging above a tent which due to the overcrowding was actually tied to the fence being no room to hammer in a peg on that side.
We were near that area so a couple of us fixed it up the next day (stewards had still not copped it!). I know we should have fixed it at the time but we were "tired and emotional!"

Those fences are heavy so if one fell on a tent with a couple sleeping inside ...

Good job an ambulance wasn't required as access lanes were all camped on.

Choochtown

My posts re this festival do seem very negative but as others have said it does have a great buzz about it.

It can be done correctly and there is such potential there for a fantastic festival but just because punters are generally young, there's no excuse for taking the p 1ss out of them especially with their safety.

chuckbass

For a festival thats been going for a while now it did seem pretty half assed with stuff like that, especially after the Friday when they had the guts of campers in. It does have great potential, lets hope they iron out the kinks.

Whipping Boy

That's the thing though - I was at CastlePalooza 8 eight years ago! It's had more than enough time to sort out any kinks.

Maybe it has something to do with the change to MCD last year, and the subsequent move away from them this year..it might need to find its feet again.

It would need a serious lineup next year for me to consider it though.

Ferris_Bueller

It definitely does have potential to be a great festival but every year I have gone has been completely different to each other, it's as if they start from scratch all over again. I think of every festival I've been to it has the nicest crowd at it, the stages/setting are all very nice and usually it's never too packed in any of them (apart from the courtyard), tickets are usually quite cheap too.

But it never seems to have any hype surrounding it, it hasn't taken off the way the likes of Body & Soul, Knockanstockan, Life, Sea Sessions etc have taken off. To be honest I don't think the ticket prices represented value for money this year, it seems to be a bit lost as to whether it is a festival strictly for Irish acts or whether it wants to grow and attract some international names. Caribou last year were fecking amazing and one of the best gigs I've ever been at, but maybe they would be best of sticking to the Irish acts in future and keeping the ticket prices lower.

ghostdancer

Whipping Boy wrote: »

That's the thing though - I was at CastlePalooza 8 eight years ago! It's had more than enough time to sort out any kinks.

Maybe it has something to do with the change to MCD last year, and the subsequent move away from them this year..it might need to find its feet again.

It would need a serious lineup next year for me to consider it though.

it was Aiken who were involved last year:

GingerLily

You could buy 5 tokens at a time (10e) but they didn't advertise it which was annoying!

Getting booze in was easy if you just picked a fast moving queue, some of the checks seemed excessive, my bag wasn't even opened!

I was disappointed by the food selection, but I was comparing it to B&S which has amazing food that it's hard to compare!

No reason for the lack of camping space which was annoying.

Agree about the Friday night issue, stupid that there was no where else to go, it got very violent in the queue to the courtyard, only trouble I saw all weekend.

chuckbass

Wow, way better headliners lat year! A few bigger hitters would have been a bonus this year to be fair.