Forest Fest - Emo, Co. Laois - July 21-23 2023

Ricosruffneck

Reading the Facebook comments.

Sometimes I wonder how people put themselves through organising festivals. Lot of hassle from the public.

scruff monkey

Campsite looked grim earlier when I got off bus but in the arena areas themselves it’s grand. It’s a lovely little setup. They need to sort the sound quality on main stage out though.

scruff monkey

Hooky hooky, oh you beautiful bastard.

sydthebeat

James were absolutely amazing last night.

scruff monkey

Thoughts on yesterday, for a small festival, they have a gift of a location, it’s compact and nicely laid out, no sound bleed from main area into the large tent during the hook \ James crossover. Towards the end of the day though the entry areas to both sections were starting to look properly ragged and they’ll have to have sorted that before the main body of sat/sun attendees arrive or we could have an interesting day.

for a capacity of 10k, I’d guess there were only a bit over 1k when James were in stage last night, must have looked grim from their vantage point.

they’ll want to pull the finger out to avoid being going the same route as forever young.

ash - decent but plagued by piss poor sound

proclaimers - surprised me, very good, very crowd pleasing, tight band behind them

nik kershaw - better than I’d expected but does not so much sing as whine

hooky - gave exactly what you’d want, a solid slap in the face with a massive block of Joy

james - never the biggest fan, solid though and gave it socks.

Penfailed

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120879180#Comment_120879180

That was my intention. Didn't pan out that way.

scruff monkey

Thing that’s **** me right off with the setup is that they’re putting out updates only on bookface, nothing on twitter / email / website.

I know space Karen has fucked twitter but thats just piss poor social media management.

they’ve put out an update this morning on fb which if you’re not using it, you’re not going to see, only know as the cousin pointed it out to me

”We are actively working to alleviate the difficulties that arose yesterday due to very difficult and inclement weather conditions and because of that our parking facilities are somewhat restricted. We would therefore encourage all people coming today where at all possible to use the shuttle bus service from Portlaoise, Portarlington and Mountmellick as this will ease pressure on the car park which unavoidably became compromised yesterday with the weather conditions. The bus brings you right to the main festival entrance and runs hourly for €8

each way. Link to timetable in the comments below. We are Liaising with the Garda, Laois County Council and our health and safety partners to

provide an additional parking solution.”

Thundercats Ho

Very good first day.

Ash / Blackie o Connell / Hooky / James.

Pints saucy @ €7, but all are €7 including the 2 craft beer stalls (Guinness Smithwicks Rockshore n Rockshore cider at the main bars)

Not a fan of the park and ride at all n had to do 2 trips so lost a few hours just getting setup.

Had a coffee, food, shower, n having a curer can now, roll on day 2.

Bumped into Rubik and Desk Tidy a few times too!

sydthebeat

Carlsberg at main bars as well.

The "forest fest" craft beer is nicely strong at 5% and only €7 as well. Very good value imo

I had a really tasty Phad Thai from the "Chinese" stall.

All bar stalls except main bar take cash.

Voice is fcuked, but ready to go for day too. Gonna get a decent meal in portarlington before heading back around 2pm.

Fair play to the shuttle bus driver last night who dropped 3 of us back to portarlington. Not very well organised as to which buses are going to portlaoise versus mountmellick and portarlington.

Penfailed

Had a disaster yesterday afternoon. Campervan field full. Caravan field full. Stewards with no clue what was going on. Eventually found myself in the park and ride. Campers were having to be towed in! Missed Ash due to the shambles. Had a brilliant night though!

Ricosruffneck

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120882318#Comment_120882318

Have to worry about those arriving today. It's not going to get better.

Glad people are having good fun though.

sydthebeat

New update

New Parking Arrangement for all Attendees Going to Forest Fest today and tomorrow.

The existing Park & Ride car park is now full and not operational for new arrivals today but we have another park and ride in operation opened this morning.

People travelling by cars must travel to the newly designated park and ride car park beside the Heath GAA grounds. Pin Drop here

https://goo.gl/maps/LiQ9KHeGCjtrjkvM7

There will be a free shuttle bus transporting guests to and from the festival arena site.

There is no parking within the GAA Club grounds itself but directly beside it which will be adequately sign posted and lit. Patrons must walk from your parked car to the GAA center for bus collection.

There is no parking permitted on the roadside near to Emo which will result in towing.

The above arrangement will not give rise to any additional travel time above what had been in place with our previous arrangement.

Phishwax

Jaysus seems like a shambles

rossie1977

It's obvious far more people are attending than expected. The local buses yesterday were packed as in standing from back to door.

The show itself I only have one complaint really the lighting in the village stage. tone it down please lol.

Not sure if this works will upload more if it does

https://streamable.com/zgafgz?src=player-page-share

Bruce2008

Why have they a camera person nearly bang in the middle of the main stage. At least for Nik Kershaw they moved around but for James they were motionless full size blocking the view! Shud be off to the side or down low in front! OK rant over! PS no body or bag searches last night shhhhh!

bodhrandude

Man I'm glad I'm not working up at this in traffic management it would be right old head phuck!!!. Just reading some of the comments on the FF Facebook page, their biggest mistake is pissing off the residents. Residents can complain to TDs and Council Officials. What the festival has done is blocked access completely for residents to come and go as they please. Any festival I've worked had that part of traffic management sorted, even Wild Roots had only part of the road blocked, with the other half of the road to free movement of residents travelling to and fro. And that's just the residents, I hear there's a campervan fiasco as well. It doesn't look good when it affects the life's living around the area I can imagine they may have trouble getting that licence next year. It reminds me of the demise of T in the Park when they changed location in Scotland and discovered the country roads were too narrow to accommodate festival and bus traffic.

sydthebeat

Yeah it certainly looks like the jump from 5k to 10k was too much too soon.

The site itself can take that capacity, but the logistics around this doesn't appear to be able to cope.

Last year you could easily get dropped off at the festival entrance. This year the whole village is blocked off.

We're coming from the portarlington side to get dropped off and they wanted us to drive the whole way onto the portlaoise road and back down to the park and ride field. Fcuk that. We just got out at Kennell cross and walked the ten minutes to the site. There didn't seem to be a thought for a simple entry exit drop off system, and directing everyone to a park and ride, when you didn't need to park, is just silly.

Especially for big numbers of day trippers like today and tomorrow will have

funnyname

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120882540#Comment_120882540

At it again today, never seen that before, amateur stuff really.

Mike Guide 69

Peter Hook was fantastic last night ,was buzzing after ,lovely tribute to Andy O’Rourke with the performance of “Atmosphere “, Pogueology brilliant as usual ,honourable mention to Motion Sickness ,can that gal sing ,best female performance so far!!!

funnyname

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120882682#Comment_120882682

One of the park n ride bus drivers told me this morning that another fock up with the campervan site was that the security at the entrance didn't check that those coming in had a campervan tix so anyone who chanced their arm before it filled up got in.

scruff monkey

much warmer today, hopefully help with the mood.

no sound gremlins for undertones. A fine choice of teenagers about.

Thrashssacre

Undertones were good fun, heavens opened after that been taking refuse since, highlights so far have been Peter hook and a couple of bands in the smaller tent Ares redemption and motionsickness.

scruff monkey

Been in fleadh tent since undertones drying off but now needs a wee and foods. Token to get moist again.

sydthebeat

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120883538#Comment_120883538

Just got the shuttle bus over with the lead singer of ares redemption beside me. Nice girl. Looking forward to seeing them later. She's a different lead singer then they had last year. That singer is now playing with motion sickness.

Furious-Red

Its sad so see both Forever Young and Forest Fest having a good few issues this year, hopefully they can learn from these things and implement a better strategy for the next year. Both seem to be popular for newish festivals so there might be teething problems but we need festivals like these that cater to different people/groups etc. If I wasn't in Canada I probably would have tried to head to Forest Fest this.

Beechwoodspark

Cousin is at it.

Complete washout but they are having a great time judging by the whatsapps

scruff monkey

It’s a bit damp. Now hiding in different tent listening to the primitives.

ATN attendees. Bring canoes.

endainoz

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120883873#Comment_120883873

Weather looks to be improving for ATN, remaining optimistic any way.

Wooderson

Sending pozz vibes to the Emo Massive tonight. Weather is grim, teetering on unplayable.

sydthebeat

The Barley mob were absolutely fantastic, such great every and Chrowd interaction. Highlight of the weekend for me so far, after James.

These charming men up next. Interested to see what the new front man is like