J5 and SFA on at the same time? That's ridiculous. Those, in my mind, were the 2 biggest attractions. Someone dropped the ball there. Was the overall event really that bad? I'm glad I couldn't go now

Sorry, gotta disagree with you austo, it was absolutely fantastic! My friends and me came away with the impression of a well organised festival in lovely setting and a lovely weather to boot! (in september for goodness sake!) OK I left early(ish), but not because it was rubbish, I'll get to why in a minute. I arrived by car and getting in was relatively painless. Plenty of Gardai to direct the traffic, highly organised parking and none of the waiting for two hours on the M50 as other peoples cars overheated and died in a cloud of steam type situation that was the case last time I went to Witnness about two years ago, which was nice. Especially if you drive a car like mine and such things can be a bit of a worry. I'm not saying its old, but its already listed in the buyers price guide of Classic Cars Magazine Walked from car park to the entrance and was inside in minutes. Arrested development were on stage already and the initial atmosphere was fairly relaxed which is why I gotta disagree with you about there being nowhere to relax. Its a festival what do you expect, a chill out lounge or something? The weather was fantastic and there was loads of dry ground to lie down on, what more do you want? Beer tent had epic queues, but thats no different to any festival I've been to. Lee Scratch Perry Cancelled but thats hardly a suprise! Nu Mark played a great DJ set, nicely covering for Grandmaster Flash being a bit late onstage. He wasn't even affected by the fact that Grandmaster Flashes' stuff was being set up around him, perfectly warming up the crowd for the grandmaster himself. The atmosphere was already electric (no pun intended) but Flash managed to raise the bar even further and turn it from "gig" into a proper block party. Belgian Pub Rockers? are you kidding? The almighty Soulwax could hardly be called that! they totally rocked! talk about about an adrenalin rush! all I can say is Wow! Yeah I pity anyone trying to watch comedy at the same time as this sheer sonic assault, the comedy tent was a bit close to the main stage. I went into the comedy tent straight after Soulwaxs set when it was quiet and quite frankly the comedan (don't know who he was) was dying onstage anyway. No offense intended to the poor guy, thems just the breaks in comedy. As for the idea that the place was full of "scumbags on E", surely you're can't seriously expect to go to a dance music oriented festival and not expect people to be taking the stuff? Not condoning it in the slightest, but its like going to a Reggae gig and expecting not to see a couple of crusty rastafarian wannabe types. Anyway, I thought the crowd was pretty good natured overall, as was the security with the exception of a shorted Barry McGuigan lookalike during soulwaxs set who stepped on my friends hand jumping over the rail into the crowd. Nutter! even the other security guys looked a bit worried by his behaviour. Wandered off to catch the end of Erol Alkans set and the entire crowd was absolutely going nuts for it, living up to his reputation as DJ who can get any party going. By the time SFA were on stage and I had seen everyone I had wanted to see except 2ManyDJs, (not really a fan of SFA or Groove Armada) but I was already starting to feel tired and still had a 2 hour drive ahead of me, so we decided to call it a night. Yes, no bins, ummmm, minor quibble really? they had people starting to clean up even before the festival was over. Overall, it was excellent!

Will the Doctor be doing a live review of the gig?

ah, I dunno. Copy, paste, expand on the above a bit?

the best type of scumbag is one on e, less likely to you know, rob you or stab you for the craic. i say distribute it freely to anyone who looks like they might possibly cause trouble. Seriously though, security gaurds and bouncers are currently undergoing a reform in this country as insurance for clubs and venues is getting too expensive so training staff is supposed to reduce the risk of expensive events such as breaking a door knob with a customers face etc. As far as I know if you have a criminal conviction of a certain type (GBH) then you cant work crowd security. Its too late but at least something is being done. Were the SFA on top form? Pissed I missed them. Their great craic to listen to.

I agree, it was excellent. We got in nice and early, got plenty of beers in, chilled on the grass for a bit then arrested development came on stage and eveyone just moved forward! We watched the first half of the match, apres match at half time, then just hung around for the rest of the day! I agree the que for the bar was a joke later on in the day, but where theres a will, theres someone at the top of the que that will do the honurs for you (for a fiver!!!!) well worth it! We left half way through groove armada, just to beat the crowds, and got a taxi back to porlaoise for a tenner!!! Dunno how you managed 28 quid! All in all a fantastic day, with fantastic people. Great day out.

judging by the phoneix park big sponsors dont seem to make a difference. Now that was a disgrace. you just need the right organisers, like the beloved feile. now they are still the best festival's Ive ever been to. Different times though I suppose. then again it could be nostalgia!

What I will say is that this was the first year the event was running, theres always going to be teething problems. Next year hopefully the problems will be sorted out. The beer queues? Not good is all I can say but then again it is a festival. I would say that next year they should probably have more space

I went myself. Was late on Friday night, so all the best laid plans of getting the early buses went out the window. Queued for quite a while and finally got on a bus around 2pm. Got to the site sometime after 4pm. In between was somewhat of a magical mystery tour with a wrong turn and a stop near a Supervalu to pick up beer. We made the most of it and had a good laugh. Had no queue getting into the gig. A cunning Garda relieved me of a can of beer, but that was fine. Wandered around, for a bit. My mate went to the wine bar and stocked up on bottles to dish out to us all. No need to go back. Sat on the grass in the sun, drinking our wine and enjoying the relaxing atmosphere. Saw some of David Kitt, Detroit Cobras had some Thai green curry (rip off, but no surprise there) then ventured into the Bodytonic arena for some nice house. Mmmm. Then some more sitting around, drinking and talking and it's time for SFA. Enjoyed them as always and look forward to Groove Armada. They pass the time pleasantly enough then it's back on the bus for home. Hurrah! Good time had. The End.

my mate was there covering it for the independent (yesterdays edition). he told me that the PR company rang him to thank him for not making too much of the overcrowdedness, because they'd had a lot of complaints about the size, layout and queues. I thought up to about 5 o clock it was good, but it got so frickin packed it just wasn't fun. i hate sitting in old noodles and rubbish, i dont know about the rest of you who were "chilling on the grass..". but the line up was really good, so hopefully next year they'll pull their heads out of their ar5es and make use of all that space down there. Also, i think the transport thing IS the organisers responsibility. what do Bus Eireann care if a load of drunk students cant get down to some field in Laois on a september day?

There are a few lessons to be learned by the organisers for next year alright and lets hope they learn them. I had a blast anyway.

If the organisers of eletric picnic had've gone to bus eireann and sorted out some sort of a transport plan I've no doubt the bus service would've been sufficient. The last time I was at Slane (years ago admittedly) there were fleets of Dublin Bus buses ferrying people to Slane and back. This was also the case with the Frames gig in Marley park. It looks to me as if the organisers overlooked this aspect as Bus Eireann always seem to be very accomodating to these big outdoor gigs. Consequently the responsibilty for transport rests squarely on the shoulders of the organisers, it's in their interest to make it easy for people to attend their gig. Hopefully the electric picnic does come back with a similarly high standard of acts next year. That gives me a whole year to get my finger out and actually go this time

I've already acknowledged that its in the organisers interests to arrange transport for the gig, however plenty of people seemed to be capable of getting there despite the poor bus service (in fact too many people according to some). Kind of negates Punchbowls' whole point about "you can't throw a gig in a field an expecting people to turn up", well they did, in a Kevin Costneresque "build it and they will come" stylee. If that many people were able to arrive by other means, I don't see why its in the organisers further monetary interest to invest in getting more busses unless they have some kind of deal going on with the bus companies. As harsh as this sounds, festival organisers do not have to ensure that anyone from any part of the country has transport to the event, no more than anyone organising any other gig has to make sure that people can get a cab home. Its in their interest, but its not their responsibility, they are not some kind of social concern for goodness sake! Slane is a much bigger event than Electric Picnic, and this wasn't run by the likes of MCD either. Maybe the Bus Companies were less obliging to the new underdog?

I see what you're point Binokular but in their interests amounts to the same as their responsibility in this case me thinks. They organised the gig in a venue that is fairly hard to get to in comparison to say Marley park or Pheonix park, therefore I think they should've made the effort to ensure people who bought a ticket for their gig, which wasn't cheap, can actually get to the gig. I agree they're not a social concern but if they want to make this gig an annual thing they are going to have to sort out transport. From reading the comments on this thread I don't think anyone would disagree with that. I'm not talking about morals here so in that sense I agree that it's not the organisers responsibility. However, if the gig is to be a success it's a responsibility they are going to have to assume