All Together Now 2019

ghostdancer

whelzer wrote: »

On the security thing, I was in/out at least 3 times per day and every time had wristband checked. Couple of times I just raised my arm (all I could manage!) but they insisted on seeing the TF band - so no complaints on that front.

the path beside the toilets was completely open into the Both Sides Now campsite for several hours on Friday, possibly even Saturday, anyone could walk in that way. They put up fencing covered with black tarp type stuff at some point before Saturday morning. Can see it in the photo below, but it definitely wasn't there on Friday afternoon.

I walked in past the wristband check with someone staying there, on Saturday night around 2am, and the security person didn't bother to check my wristband at all.

Eod100

lbj666 wrote: »

I agree, but at least things are bit constructive here. We are mostly concerned followers who fell in love with it last year and doesnt want to see anything happen to it.

Ah yeah constructive criticism welcome I think. It's kinda like the planning vs no planning people pre festival. A lot of planning needs to take place for everyone to enjoy the festival. So if it can be improved next year then it's good for everyone. Don't think I know anything more than the next person or anything just giving my 2 cents

phantom_lord

Ferris_Bueller wrote: »

Oh yeah I completely forgot about that too! Stumbled across it during one of the downpours on Sunday evening after the Wailers. That was so cool, I wonder how did people figure out in the first place :pac: as far as I can remember it was smiley faces and love hearts and maybe writing that said 'Love'.

I'd say it went through periods of not being noticed. People must have noticed in their peripheral vision when turning to look at someone?

Tried googling about it but no luck.

It's an interesting experiment to in how information gets disseminated through crowds/strangers

ghostdancer

evani1976 wrote: »

Re the traffic management plan speaking as a local it doesnt make sense not too have channelled all Northern & Western traffic over the new toll bridge. It is the easiest way to cross the River Suir and leads you straight past all that maze of roads around Carrick. Once you cross bridge you have duel carriageway more or less to Red Gate access road at Kilmacthomas. I think all traffic (blue and red) could of being filtered in that way.

Only reason i can think for not going over new bridge is permission being refused by road operater as it is a private road and not under the remit of local authority. Crazy fecking plan whatever went on.

can't imagine they'd be turning down a few thousand vehicles paying 2 tolls!

The more I'm thinking about it, the more I think the council and Gardai are ultimately at fault for the traffic mess, but I doubt they'll take any responsibility.....

bennyineire

ghostdancer wrote: »

can't imagine they'd be turning down a few thousand vehicles paying 2 tolls!

The more I'm thinking about it, the more I think the council and Gardai are ultimately at fault for the traffic mess, but I doubt they'll take any responsibility.....

I believe the toll contract has a clause in it if there is more than 5 cars in a queues they have to open the toll barriers to stop traffic jams. This could explain why they wouldn't want a concentrated level of traffic

evani1976

ghostdancer wrote: »

can't imagine they'd be turning down a few thousand vehicles paying 2 tolls!

The more I'm thinking about it, the more I think the council and Gardai are ultimately at fault for the traffic mess, but I doubt they'll take any responsibility.....

They get paid anyway up to certain number of cars agreed with gov during celtic tiger era. They currently operate way under that agreed number anyway. So why take on the liability. Welcome to Ireland. : )

bodhrandude

The traffic chaos that occurred at ATN 19, its nothing new and can happen to well organised festivals. Look at T in the Park's demise in 2015, before they moved to their last site Strathallan Park the festival had an unblemished record of successful sell outs for at least twenty years, then they moved to Strathallan and had identical problems to ATN this year. The roads leading to the site were narrow country lanes. Loads missed the first day of acts because of traffic congestion and apparently it was worse trying to leave the site on Monday which took some people eight hours to get off site. Hence! T in the Park became the city event called TRNSMT.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/590891/Traffic-chaos-stuck-T-in-the-Park

bennyineire

What was the traffic like getting out on Monday by the way ?

PabloAndRoy

whelzer wrote: »

Think I paid 190 for 2 man, including airbed and new sleeping bags that you could keep... which I did, loads around me didn't.

As I said in my previous post, I would not use TF again, main issue being lack of space btn tents.

On the security thing, I was in/out at least 3 times per day and every time had wristband checked. Couple of times I just raised my arm (all I could manage!) but they insisted on seeing the TF band - so no complaints on that front.

We walked through there every day on the way home. Our bands were checked and we did not have TF or PP bands.

whelzer

bodhrandude wrote: »

an amazing 10 piece Afrobeat group called Yankari who were one of my absolute highlights, opting for them rather than stuff on the main stage or marquees

Without a shadow of doubt, they did the best band intro I have ever seen!

hetuzozaho

bennyineire wrote: »

What was the traffic like getting out on Monday by the way ?

We left at nine and was grand, no traffic, from red.

Maybe hour and half getting in on Fri evening round 6pm, but expected that. We followed garda route for red gate.

Eod100

ghostdancer wrote: »

can't imagine they'd be turning down a few thousand vehicles paying 2 tolls!

The more I'm thinking about it, the more I think the council and Gardai are ultimately at fault for the traffic mess, but I doubt they'll take any responsibility.....

Think the bus went that route. Well it definitely went through toll and then onto Portlaw. But maybe they wanted to free it so bus could sail in?

PabloAndRoy

bennyineire wrote: »

What was the traffic like getting out on Monday by the way ?

We left campervans at 11.45 and were in Dungarvan 12:45. Very light traffic.

jellybeano

We had a deadly time. After being at ATN I was interested in seeing how it changed and grew.
Traffic thankfully was not an issue for us. Left Dublin at 12 and we’re in the campsite at 3ish. There were about 20 cars in front of us queing for the red gate. I thought the Garda travel advice /map worked really well for the red car park (via Kilmacthomas) Thanks to the boardie for posting that map earlier on in the thread.

Bellepads apparently increased their capacity by 40% bigger than anything they had done in Ireland previously and were run off their feet still setting up on the day. (Chinese whispers etc) Tangerine fields queue was ridiculous. Yea sure facilities weren’t great. Another cuppa tea and brekkie tent or 2 would have been brilliant. But last year there was no brekkie to be had at all in the podpad area.

We needed to help a friend who was over in the blue car park so walked the entire site, happy out. The walk over from red to blue (via the arena) was grand. Yep there is a wee hill but still had the craic as we came back with all the gear. Many thanks again to the boardies here to overlaid maps etc from last year cos we knew about the extra camping area in the blue/ BSN campsite and headed to that area to help our mate set up.

Heaps of great music. Enjoyed John Grant, bingo loco (Sat) - hilarious!, Deece to name a few. Way more ravier than last year. I remember on Sunday night (2018) there being massive gaps in schedule and not much to dance to till Haai but this year Sunday night was chocca with dance music all over the site.

I missed the house and the lake and I wish that there were more places to sit down (bit like b&s at ep) and wish there more places to get a late night cuppa tea cos everywhere shut super early. Sound at the bandstand for Prince Tribute was absolutely awful - way too low. Thought the new global roots area was fantastic. Opening the site to campervans and families on Thursday night may help with congestion.

No problems leaving either. All in all we had a cracking weekend and are already looking forward to returning next year. Loved all of the wee top tips and insights to the festival on this thread, from Orbital playing (are they or aren’t they) to must see bands etc.

bodhrandude

ghostdancer wrote: »

Were you given much training before the gates opened BD?

The reason I ask is that neither steward we met going into the red carpark even knew what the Both Sides Now campsite was. They didn't seem to know if we could even get to general camping from that carpark at all. Completely useless.

Then in the field, there were 2 or 3 people lining up cars, but they were doing it in a completely disorganised and inefficient way.

It just seemed like all the stewards/volunteers hadn't a clue what they were doing, or had no idea about the festival layout, something that several people have echoed in other reports.....

No my brief was campers and caravans, we didn't even have a map, our job was basically to direct vehicles to the parkers and an info steward for people in this particular field and the family camping field as they had caravans and campers too. There were specific stewards assigned to the general camping area and at posts leading to it, they should have been briefed with that task of assisting you.

Stillill42

bennyineire wrote: »

What was the traffic like getting out on Monday by the way ?

We had the fear and were out at 7. Sun splitting the stones, the place looked beautiful, hardly a sinner in the carpark. We flew out.

ghostdancer

jellybeano wrote: »

We had a deadly time. After being at ATN I was interested in seeing how it changed and grew.
Traffic thankfully was not an issue for us. Left Dublin at 12 and we’re in the campsite at 3ish. There were about 20 cars in front of us queing for the red gate. I thought the Garda travel advice /map worked really well for the red car park (via Kilmacthomas) Thanks to the boardie for posting that map earlier on in the thread.

ha, the Garda route from Dublin was specifically NOT through Kilmacthomas, or indeed on that side of the site whatsoever :pac:

https://www.garda.ie/en/about-us/our-departments/office-of-corporate-communications/news-media/traffic-routes-curraghmore-estate-portlaw-co-waterford-2019.pdf

As per that, traffic coming from Dublin should have come off to the north-east of the site, and gone through Carrick-on-Suir, and up a tiny one-lane lane, where the massive traffic jams were.

bodhrandude

whelzer wrote: »

Without a shadow of doubt, they did the best band intro I have ever seen!

Was that the one they done this kind of drum dance, crouched down and jumped up again, they had the whole audience doing it.

Aceso

bennyineire wrote: »

What was the traffic like getting out on Monday by the way ?

It took friends of ours 3 hours to get out of the carpark on Monday morning.

Just re: the toilets. I don't care about the lack of toilet roll at 11pm, that's to be expected and you carry toilet paper around with you, not a problem. But, no toilet roll in the campsite toilets from 11pm until 6pm the following day, that was a big failure. Toilets not being cleaned at least once a day was a big failure. The toilets in the campsite were not cleaned at all on Friday and were not cleaned until late Saturday evening.
I've gone to festivals for 10 years and the toilets are always closed off and cleaned on a schedule - this benefits the organisers and the attendees.
When I was at Hot Chip on Saturday night, I left to go to the toilet 3 times, queued for approx 10 minutes each time and each time I got to the top of the queue, the toilet was an absolute disgrace, overflowing and unusable.

HarryTheSpider

phantom_lord wrote: »

I'd say it went through periods of not being noticed. People must have noticed in their peripheral vision when turning to look at someone?

Tried googling about it but no luck.

It's an interesting experiment to in how information gets disseminated through crowds/strangers

We saw them last year. I can't actually remember whether we saw them ourselves, saw someone else looking at them or were told about them.

We made a point of telling people whenever we could. They had some at EP last year as well.

It is really funny to watch people's reactions change from disbelief to amazement.

jellybeano

ghostdancer wrote: »

ha, the Garda route from Dublin was specifically NOT through Kilmacthomas, or indeed on that side of the site whatsoever :pac:

https://www.garda.ie/en/about-us/our-departments/office-of-corporate-communications/news-media/traffic-routes-curraghmore-estate-portlaw-co-waterford-2019.pdf

As per that, traffic coming from Dublin should have come off to the north-east of the site, and gone through Carrick-on-Suir, and up a tiny one-lane lane, where the massive traffic jams were.

Yea you’re totally right all Dublin traffic was directed via Carrick. All of the blue and red traffic (I’m gonna guess 8-10,000 cars) were directed that way and it was an absolute shambles. I’ve lost hours in traffic in Athy before trying to get to the picnic. It just made sense for us to go via Kilmacthomas (as per the map) as it was the way we travelled to ATN last year (from Waterford) and we were familiar with that red route.

dartboardio

Please stop BEING kids arguing over whether it's a family festival or a festival only suitable for adult activities.

Its a festival for everyone. Perfect for families and perfect for people young or old looking to get fxxked up.

sporina

hmmmmmmmmmmm......

ILIKEFOOD

Loved it just as much as last year - got stuck in the traffic for 8 hours but got in having missed only one act..

Zero issues after that and enjoyed the whole thing from start to end..

Only thing is making some poor choices in Jon Hopkins and George Fitzgerald... I knew they were mundane, unimaginative middle of the road household electronica before I went and having now seen them both live I hate them even more.. absolute ****e on a stick... ugh. Thank god there was a whole lot more going in the electronica genre than them.

Fingers crossed it gets the go ahead next year and the traffic thing is fixed, and perhaps even a bit more organisation in the general campsite..

nsi423

I think Fontaines sounded different depending on where you were. We were far back near the sound tent and the vocals were loud and clear. Other friends said they couldn't hear the vocals up at the front, but when they moved back it was much better.

Overall I had a really good weekend because every random interaction with the people there was great. Great atmosphere, no hassle. Not as good as last year but then again last year was pure magic!

mojesius

Also, a big thank you to whoever posted the tip about putting frozen Capri suns in the cooler. They definitely kept beer colder for longer and were a god send every morning after a heavy night. Stayed cool right until the Monday!

Still scared to leave the house this morning...

I had no idea this festival was marketed for children. I find it unsettling bumping into a toddler in a what is essentially a nightclub. Each to their own.

Daisies

ghostdancer wrote: »

forgot about that, really good. I saw some people shaking their head from side to side while staring at the light and thought they were just off their head.

curiosity got the better of me, and did it myself going past and it was a brilliant discovery. Made sure that a few more people going past discovered it too! I'd say almost everyone just walked past and just thought they were normal lights.

Sunday evening around 10 we stood there for 15mins making people who walked past look at it. I'm sure most thought we were off our heads.

whelzer wrote: »

Without a shadow of doubt, they did the best band intro I have ever seen!

Love Yankari, have seen them in the Sugar Club and in the Bernard Shaw.

Overall I had a brilliant weekend. We left Limerick around half 4 and had our tent pitched by 9. Headed into King Kong Company and kicked the weekend off that way.

Pros:
Free flow. While obviously from a punters point of view its great, it must be great for the early acts to have more people in to watch. I've never seen arenas as full at midday and I've been to EP more times than I would care to admit.
The crowd. Never felt uneasy like can sometimes be the case. Lots of random banter.
Global Roots. What a gem of a stage. Dragged my friends to see Farah Elle and Andreas Staic. Finished Sunday there with the Fullee Love Collective and DJ Kixx.
Sing Along Social. There's not many acts that could keep that amount of people out in pouring rain.
How compact the site was. Was easy to pop back to the tent for more booze/to change out of soaked clothes etc

Cons:
Toilets never being cleaned. I'm no princess but last year at EP there was at least someone restocking the toilet paper and hand sanitiser constantly.
Band scheduling. It could have been staggered more to allow you to catch one half of one and the second half of another.
No announcements about e.g acts being changed, acts not showing up. Arrived at the Bandstand to see Booka Brass and there was just no one on stage.

Overall I had a great weekend. Luckily wasn't too traumatised by the traffic, unlike a friend who took 8 hours from Dublin on Friday and took 3 hours to leave the car park on Monday. I would probably go again, price dependent.

patch

How did Galway people find the drive down? Via limerick I guess and cross country? Lack of a motorway straight there is a bit off putting.
A few of us had planned ATN next year instead of EP so just weighing up all the factors.

boomshakalaka

patch wrote: »

How did Galway people find the drive down? Via limerick I guess and cross country? Lack of a motorway straight there is a bit off putting.
A few of us had planned ATN next year instead of EP so just weighing up all the factors.

I drove from Galway last year and this year. Don't find it a bad drive at all tbh probably because two years ago we went to Townlands in Macroom and that really felt like a trek. Small country roads for most of it.
For ATN Motorway to Limerick then a little bit of slowness through Tipp and Clonmel. A lot of it consists of good roads that are 2 lanes and speed limits of 80 or 100. So it doesn't feel slow. Beautiful part of the country too if you ask me so I enjoy the drive!
Home drive is sound too because the last stretch is motorway and that's easy, so cruising really

Had to laugh at the series of 13 roundabouts around Tipp. So many roundabouts!

Landed in Carrick on Suir from Galway in under 3 hours.. we won't talk about what happened after....