AC/DC Punchestown 28/06/09

Sinderella

Dcully wrote: »

Some of the 22 of us that went to ACDC are going to Oxygen, most including my brother are considering offloading their tickets.

Oxegen's not usually as bad because you don't have 80,000 people coming and going at the same time. The crowds are spread over 3 / 4 days and thousands camp out.

I don't know why they don't allow camping at one nighters. It would solve so much of the traffic issues, safety issues and general wrecking of the town issues. :rolleyes:

hillerbees

Deleted User wrote: »

There is no place at a gig for grown men getting sick all over themselves, passing out, starting fights and pushing young children around. I'm all for a few drinks and understand that alcohol and rock go hand in hand but there is a line.

If you need alcohol to enjoy a gig then you really shouldn't be there in the first place.

I'm a fan of AC/DC as is my Dad and 5 brothers who attended the gig. We met dozens of other fans and families many with 3 and 4 generatiosn of the family there and you know what, none of them were so drunk they couldn't stand up. There were tens of thousands of sober fans there who rocked out during every song and then there were the thousands of drunken idiots stumbling around and going crazy and causing trouble whenever they recognised a song from the radio.

Take the gig yesterday which while amazing wasn't a patch on the O2 show. The reason being that the O2 gig was a fans gig. It was full of people like myself and my Dad who had it come down to it would gladly have parted with 300 euro for a ticket. I seriously doubt that many of yesterdays attendees would have done the same.

A fan's gig ? - There were plenty of fans who couldn't get a ticket to the O2, I was online waiting for the tickets for that show and my wife was on a home computer doing the same. The tickets went as fast as the system allowed the sales to be processed, it was a complete lottery as to whether you got one or not.

Also your comments about how much you would spend to see someone play is irrelevant, being a fan is based on what is in your heart not how much you have in your wallet.

I DO however agree that a lot of people go to these open air concerts to just get pissed in a big field and that does ruin it for the real fans there. I was at Slane in '86 for Queen, a very similar day in all respects, right down to the sh1tty weather and 23 years ago it was exactly the same - a fantastic live band on stage and a load of tossers falling around the place drunk. I love my booze but never at a concert when a class band is doing its thing.

Dcully

hillerbees wrote: »

Also your comments about how much you would spend to see someone play is irrelevant, being a fan is based on what is in your heart not how much you have in your wallet.

I DO however agree that a lot of people go to these open air concerts to just get pissed in a big field and that does ruin it for the real fans there. I was at Slane in '86 for Queen, a very similar day in all respects, right down to the sh1tty weather and 23 years ago it was exactly the same - a fantastic live band on stage and a load of tossers falling around the place drunk. I love my booze but never at a concert when a class band is doing its thing.

Fully agree with you on both counts.

partyguinness

A fan's gig...jaysus get your head out of your ass.:rolleyes:

The tickets for the O2 were sold out in 2-3 minutes. Therefore I had to buy tickets for their concert in the NEC in Birmingham the following Thursday.

Hence I had to book flights over etc to England and take extra days holiday.

Am I somehow less of a fan beacuse I didnt make the O2 gig

p.s. the price for the UK gig was £40.00 sterling about €50...compared to the irish price??

I enjoyed the Punchestown gig more because I was stone cold sober which added to my enjoyment. It was better than the seated arena in the NEC..no comment on the O2 as I wasnt there. Yes...there were drunken idiots there who were a distraction and an annoyance but ACDC were unreal and I am not allowing drunken idiots to over shadow a fantastic gig.

hillerbees

m-i-t-s-u-k-o wrote: »

Obnoxious slightly drunk c***s. Whatever about throwing people up the same two people to crowd surf they managed to whack EVERYONE around them very hard with some body part of the person they were hoisting and were then confused as to why no one around him would hold him up... And their stupid dancing. Fine, it's a rock concert, you wanna rock out, I did, everyone else did but still everyone else managed to keep some sort of consideration for the people around and not bash into them and expect them to be cool with it. Personally I got stood on several times, at one point punched in the face, elbowed in the stomach and my bf got much the same. The guys apologised once or twice but didn't get the message and when people started to yell at them their response was "It's a f***ing rock concert, don't like it? Get the F*** OUT!"

Have to agree, its a pain when you are rockin' out and toss pots who couldn't care less about those around them decide to go "out of control" and you end up spending your time defending yourself and watching out for vunerable people near you instead. And like you say the worst thing is that they think you are the one being a kill joy.

hillerbees

hillerbees wrote: »

A fan's gig ? - There were plenty of fans who couldn't get a ticket to the O2, I was online waiting for the tickets for that show and my wife was on a home computer doing the same. The tickets went as fast as the system allowed the sales to be processed, it was a complete lottery as to whether you got one or not.

Yes it was difficult to get a ticket, I managed to get mine by joining the fan club and getting a fan club number making it easier to get a ticket. when I say a fans gig I mean the audience was 95% life long fans of the band all of whom were there for the music. Notice that no one at the O2 was staggering around clutching 4 pints to their chest.

hillerbees wrote: »

Also your comments about how much you would spend to see someone play is irrelevant, being a fan is based on what is in your heart not how much you have in your wallet.

You completely missed my point there. My point was that the people paying 300 euro for an O2 ticket were fans and were the tables reversed large portions of Sundays audience would not have done the same even if they could easily afford it as they were not fans.

hillerbees wrote: »

I DO however agree that a lot of people go to these open air concerts to just get pissed in a big field and that does ruin it for the real fans there. I was at Slane in '86 for Queen, a very similar day in all respects, right down to the sh1tty weather and 23 years ago it was exactly the same - a fantastic live band on stage and a load of tossers falling around the place drunk. I love my booze but never at a concert when a class band is doing its thing.

As I said stopping for food on the way home I encountered the exact same carry on from people falling out of the clubs at half two as I did at the gig.

partyguinness wrote: »

A fan's gig...jaysus get your head out of your ass.:rolleyes:

What else do you call a gig whose audience is made up of fans and not a bunch o fdrunken idiots there for an excuse to get pissed and nothing more.

partyguinness wrote: »

The tickets for the O2 were sold out in 2-3 minutes. Therefore I had to buy tickets for their concert in the NEC in Birmingham the following Thursday.

Hence I had to book flights over etc to England and take extra days holiday.

Am I somehow less of a fan beacuse I didnt make the O2 gig

I think that you missed the point there also. No one said that if you missed the O2 you were less of a fan. You can be counted as a fan as you went out of you way to see the band, flying to England and taking days off makes you a fan. When I said the O2 was a fans gig I was merely comparing it to the Puncherstown gig. The crowd in the O2 was made up of fans, Punchers town was a mix of fans and a large portion of drunken jackass who would be mroe at home in a club than at a rock gig.

hillerbees

wildsaffy wrote: »

What Rock Concerts Are About:

1. Queues
2. Smelly toilets
3. Drunken Idiots
4. Waiting ages in between band changes
5. Rain
6. Getting Squashed
7. Bad sound for the poor supporting bands
8. Great music from the headlining band (AC/DC had GREAT sound)
9. Getting rained on
10. Feeling lucky to get home alive

If you don't factor all this in you should stay at home and knit a chastity belt. And DON'T take your kid to a rock concert and complain that the kid got scared......sheesh!

Now - the other extreme - can you imagine if everything was clean and pristine, ran to a timetable like clockwork, the sun shone, no one was drinking or smoking funny stuff, and you were home tucked up with your cocoa by 1 a.m. Pure rock and roll, baby....

AC/DC rocked! Loved it.....:D

p.s. I got my tits out too but the camera was pointing the wrong way!!! :rolleyes:

Well thank God for the internetlove, nows your chance!!..get a pic up!!

hillerbees

hillerbees wrote: »

Have to agree, its a pain when you are rockin' out and toss pots who couldn't care less about those around them decide to go "out of control" and you end up spending your time defending yourself and watching out for vunerable people near you instead. And like you say the worst thing is that they think you are the one being a kill joy.

Some jackass crowd surfing behind me was flailing about like a mad man and were it not for some random guy who stepped behind me and grabbed the guys head I would have gotten a nice headbutt right to the back of my head. I saw one girl get a full boot to the face when two drunken scumbags decided to hoist each other up.

hillerbees

Numina wrote: »

Here's a question for everyone. Did anybody even see one black person there?Because out of the thousands of people that I passed, not one of them was black.

No I didn't, didn't see any orientals either now that you mention it - weird:)

hillerbees

jasonducks wrote: »

I'm glad to see so many people are outraged with the organisation of this incredible event. I actually went on the last word yesterday evening and spoke to Matt Cooper about my feelings towards MCD's handling, you can listen to it online at todayfm.com it was monday 29/6/09's edition of the last word at about 18.20.

Heard you on the show, well done for getting on air but you weren't half vocal enough, I would have let MCD have it..good man for giving it a go though...more power to your right elbow!!

Sarky

Deleted User wrote: »

Yes it was difficult to get a ticket, I managed to get mine by joining the fan club and getting a fan club number making it easier to get a ticket. when I say a fans gig I mean the audience was 95% life long fans of the band all of whom were there for the music. Notice that no one at the O2 was staggering around clutching 4 pints to their chest.

For me, at least, this was because there was whiskey available at the O2. The "****ty wine or Heineken" approach at Punchestown did not impress me one bit. Thank the gods for hipflasks, eh?

Bluefoam

Deleted User wrote: »

Some jackass crowd surfing behind me was flailing about like a mad man and were it not for some random guy who stepped behind me and grabbed the guys head I would have gotten a nice headbutt right to the back of my head. I saw one girl get a full boot to the face when two drunken scumbags decided to hoist each other up.

If you want to be in the pit/mosh/at the front, you are gonna have to expect a little moshing & crowd surfing. I used to love it - am too old now - can't keep up, so got a good spot a bit further away & enjoyed every minute of the show! If you are up there, you should look out for yourself & those around you - this usually happens anyway at gigs ion Ireland, the crowd are usually very good. Unlike some gigs i've been to. eg. Donington - during Slayer, it was absolute carnage!!! I got caught in a pit... Lets just say it was violent to the extreme!

jebus58

I keep reading about the apparent lack of stewards and gardai at the event, which is rubbish. All were wearing high-vis jackets which glared at you in the darkness, there were hundreds of them about the venue, saying that none were to be found is ridiculous.

Secondly there were two exits, not one as also mentioned several times.
Yes the situation with the buses after the concert was anything but pleasant but the comparison with hillsborough is moronic and shows a complete neglect of context.

At hillsborough the fans all piled into a CAGE hearing the roar of the crowd as a goal was almost scored. the people at the front had no way out, nobody at the back had any idea of the situation as still more people crammed in. how can this be compared to people queuing for a bus at 1 in the morning?

"i don't know how anyone wasn't seriously hurt" is a frequently recurring statement here, well it's glaringly obvious that nobody was seriously hurt because bar crowd violence or some form of motor accident there was no chance for anybody to be serioulsy hurt.

also how can you blame stewards for not chasing people who jump fences. these people (and if you haven't already guessed i'm a steward who was there) were there from 10am till 2.30am, that's a long day in anybody's language, and we are not allowed to nor do we want to use force at any stage or else we'd be finding ourselves in a whole other mess. do you want us to rugby tackle each idiot that thinks he's a hero for jumping a 3ft fence and dancing in front of tired people who've been waiting for hours nd just want to get home.

i felt awful for all those ppl in the queues at the end, it was unfortunate but unavoidable. we stood at the top of the queues and helped to fill the buses when they came, we just had to wait and that was it, the majority of the crowd understood this, some hurled appalling abuse at us nd we just had to smile and take it, though after being on our feet for 15 hours straight another reaction crossed my mind briefly.

the fact is that it was organised as well as it could be, simply put when you join 80,000 people in one location and all want to go home at one time there's going to be a problem with transport, the buses did a great job and everybody had left the grounds by 2am, that's 2 and a half hours which isn't "appalling" or "shocking," even at minor events like a debs it takes a couple hours for all the buses to come, unless mcd employ harry potter to sort things out at future events. i'm really curious as to where all this whining is coming from, concerts always came with huge queues and long journeys home it's part of the package, if you're too delicate then buy the cd, save yourself the "nightmare"

Bluefoam

Bluefoam wrote: »

If you want to be in the pit/mosh/at the front, you are gonna have to expect a little moshing & crowd surfing. I used to love it - am too old now - can't keep up, so got a good spot a bit further away & enjoyed every minute of the show! If you are up there, you should look out for yourself & those around you - this usually happens anyway at gigs ion Ireland, the crowd are usually very good. Unlike some gigs i've been to. eg. Donington - during Slayer, it was absolute carnage!!! I got caught in a pit... Lets just say it was violent to the extreme!

I was actually back a bit from the front. I was behind the three speaker stands in a nice spot from where I could see everything. The crowd surfing was going on here and no one was enjoying it apart from the jackasses doing it. I've been in some crazy pits and watching as people got trampled on as no one tried to help them was hard to do.

Sarky

Sarky wrote: »

For me, at least, this was because there was whiskey available at the O2. The "****ty wine or Heineken" approach at Punchestown did not impress me one bit. Thank the gods for hipflasks, eh?

Ah yes the whiskey was good at the O2. Had a pint of Heineken and it was disgusting, had a nice whiskey to wash it down.

Bluefoam

jebus58 wrote: »

I keep reading about the apparent lack of stewards and gardai at the event, which is rubbish. All were wearing high-vis jackets which glared at you in the darkness, there were hundreds of them about the venue, saying that none were to be found is ridiculous

I did note that 3 stewards walked past watching as two guys thumped the heads off each other, in what was a fairly serious fight. I couldn't believe they didn't stop to do anything about it. Others around tried to break it up.

justhim

Bluefoam wrote: »

I did note that 3 stewards walked past watching as two guys thumped the heads off each other, in what was a fairly serious fight. I couldn't believe they didn't stop to do anything about it. Others around tried to break it up.

This seems to be a misconception which appears again and again in these types of threads. People seem to see the word steward and assume
theyre security guards/bouncers who's job it is to jump into fights and sort them out this is not the case. The vast majority of stewards that
work at these events are young people and students, who don't get paid much, whos job it is to stand at a gate and direct people, stand at a barrier to make sure people dont try and climb things, to direct traffic etc. Every person working at an event with a stewards bib on is not trained to deal with fights, in fact most of them arent. And as such they are no meant to nor allowed to get involved in fights because doing so
would more than likely result in injury to themselves than anything else. There are steward whose job it is to deal with these incidents normally placed in locations where fights are likely to occur but unfortunately it'll never be the case that theyre everywhere.

KerranJast

justhim wrote: »

This seems to be a misconception which appears again and again in these types of threads. People seem to see the word steward and assume
theyre security guards/bouncers who's job it is to jump into fights and sort them out this is not the case. The vast majority of stewards that
work at these events are young people and students, who don't get paid much, whos job it is to stand at a gate and direct people, stand at a barrier to make sure people dont try and climb things, to direct traffic etc. Every person working at an event with a stewards bib on is not trained to deal with fights, in fact most of them arent. And as such they are no meant to nor allowed to get involved in fights because doing so
would more than likely result in injury to themselves than anything else. There are steward whose job it is to deal with these incidents normally placed in locations where fights are likely to occur but unfortunately it'll never be the case that theyre everywhere.

Agreed but there wasn't enough of them to do the highlighted task. I witnessed one young steward trying to herd stragglers off the road in front of the buses, direct full buses on, flag down empty buses, keep 7 or 800 tired, impatient punters in check and stop said punters from jumping the queue. All that is impossible with for only 1 person. They should have had at least three stewards to manage the queue (one to deal with the front, two to keep an eye on either flank). They needed at least another 3 for each queue (one to coordinate the buses and two to keep idiots out of the road in the section between queues). As it was you have only one steward per queue and one poor sap with a walkie having to run the lenght of a football pitch to try and keep gob****es out of the road and to keep the busdrivers from leapfrogging each other and causing a crash.

tina27a

jebus58 wrote: »

I keep reading about the apparent lack of stewards and gardai at the event, which is rubbish. All were wearing high-vis jackets which glared at you in the darkness, there were hundreds of them about the venue, saying that none were to be found is ridiculous.

"

My God are you for real ?????I didn't see any stewarts until i was trying to get on a bus and then i passed about 30 of them standing well back from all the people and looking as if they didn't have a clue what was going on.
You say that you were a stewart on the night ...... well if all the other stewarts had the stupid mentality that you have then i now know why we were in deep s**t.:eek:

You also have the audacity to say

"i don't know how anyone wasn't seriously hurt" is a frequently recurring statement here, well it's glaringly obvious that nobody was seriously hurt because bar crowd violence or some form of motor accident there was no chance for anybody to be serioulsy hurt.

There was a BIG chance of someone getting seriously hurt.What would happen if someone fell on the ground ? You obviously don't have the brains to work that out so i'll tell you ...... they would have been trampled on and badly hurt or worse killed.Do you understand what happens when someone gets knocked over and can't get up again because there is no crowd control???? They get TRAMPLED on.

Well you thought it was organised as well as it could be so all these other posters are all just dreaming aren't they? Oh no your the eejit whose living in dream land and i now know that mcd seem to employ a lot of eejits who know nothing about how to control large crowds and that just emphasises the point for me.I will never again go to a concert in Punchestown no matter who is playing.I would rather go abroad and see anyone else than be trated like a load of cattle in a field ever again.

By the way AC/DC rocked but sure we all knew that was going to happen anyway.

happyoutscan

Brilliant gig, amazing, but the organization was rubbish but that was to be expected from that hopeless lot. I have sent my emails to Kildare County Council and the Gardai so will let ye know if I get a reply but I doubt it.

Reminds me of Oxegen 2006 (the only time I went and I won't be going again), outside a pub in Kilcock having a pint and waiting to be collected by the boys from the wesssshhhht. 2:15 in the afternoon and what goes by? 2 trucks loaded up with port-a-loos. Alot of port-a-loos. Destination? Oxegen. Gates opened at Oxegen at what time? 2:00pm. Now that's what I call great organization. :rolleyes:

gandalf

jebus58 wrote: »

I keep reading about the apparent lack of stewards and gardai at the event, which is rubbish. All were wearing high-vis jackets which glared at you in the darkness, there were hundreds of them about the venue, saying that none were to be found is ridiculous.

Ah yes at the start of day they were visable. When the concert ended there were absent or standing together having a good natter. It was like the concert had ended and they clocked off. As I said it was only when things got very messy and nasty that some of them actually did realise they had to do something and by that stage it was too little too late.

Secondly there were two exits, not one as also mentioned several times.
Yes the situation with the buses after the concert was anything but pleasant but the comparison with hillsborough is moronic and shows a complete neglect of context.

I mentioned the Hillborough comment. It was uttered by a man beside me in the Dublin Bus queue when it collapsed and we were pushed forward by the crowd rushing behind us. Someone behind us fell and I assume and hope they were picked up without too much discomfort or injury. The queue collapsed, barriers were pushed over, people fell over the barriers. There was potential for injury and worse so I think it was a very apt comment.

As I said earlier I have gone to concerts in this country and others for over 20 years now and Sunday was the first time I felt I was in physical danger ever.

At hillsborough the fans all piled into a CAGE hearing the roar of the crowd as a goal was almost scored. the people at the front had no way out, nobody at the back had any idea of the situation as still more people crammed in. how can this be compared to people queuing for a bus at 1 in the morning?

Hillborough was a crowd crush situation because of bad organisation and arrogance by the authorities that nothing like it could happen. We have the elements of bad organisation and arrogance from the powers that be that they had everything in order when it was clear they didn't. The only thing lacking was a body count. Thankfully that didn't happen on Sunday. So what do we sit back and wait for that to occur before we take action?

"i don't know how anyone wasn't seriously hurt" is a frequently recurring statement here, well it's glaringly obvious that nobody was seriously hurt because bar crowd violence or some form of motor accident there was no chance for anybody to be serioulsy hurt.

They were lucky the potential was there for serious injuries to occur. People could have been badly crushed when the queue collapsed, when the queue collapsed people were pushed out onto the lane that the buses were travelling down so the potential was there for injury as well. Just because there wasn't a casualty count doesn't mean that it was not an extremely bad breach of public safety.

also how can you blame stewards for not chasing people who jump fences. these people (and if you haven't already guessed i'm a steward who was there) were there from 10am till 2.30am, that's a long day in anybody's language, and we are not allowed to nor do we want to use force at any stage or else we'd be finding ourselves in a whole other mess. do you want us to rugby tackle each idiot that thinks he's a hero for jumping a 3ft fence and dancing in front of tired people who've been waiting for hours nd just want to get home.

I would assume that one of the stewards main jobs is to ensure that whatever system and processes are in place to ensure the crowd get from A to B are implemented and enforced. This clearly didn't happen after the concert.

I'm not sure what you think the Stewards were for, to look pretty in their hi-vis vests and have a damn good natter about things in groups?

A rugby tackle wouldn't be necessary as you dramatically put it. All the had to be was visible and vocal. They weren't I unfortunately was there and experienced the chaos of that queue personally.

i felt awful for all those ppl in the queues at the end, it was unfortunate but unavoidable. we stood at the top of the queues and helped to fill the buses when they came, we just had to wait and that was it, the majority of the crowd understood this, some hurled appalling abuse at us nd we just had to smile and take it, though after being on our feet for 15 hours straight another reaction crossed my mind briefly.

I take it that you were one of the Stewards then or do you work for MCD directly.

If so what was the actual plan to get people out of Punchestown successfully? Was there a plan if things started to go pearshape like they did in Slane?

the fact is that it was organised as well as it could be, simply put when you join 80,000 people in one location and all want to go home at one time there's going to be a problem with transport, the buses did a great job and everybody had left the grounds by 2am, that's 2 and a half hours which isn't "appalling" or "shocking," even at minor events like a debs it takes a couple hours for all the buses to come, unless mcd employ harry potter to sort things out at future events. i'm really curious as to where all this whining is coming from, concerts always came with huge queues and long journeys home it's part of the package, if you're too delicate then buy the cd, save yourself the "nightmare"

I have attended numerous concerts and I expect to queue to get out but my experience on Sunday night was by far the worst I have ever experienced leaving or attending a concert anywhere. As I said its the first time I ever felt in danger at an outside event ever.

MCD obviously did not plan the whole end of evening exit scenario properly at all. A primary school child would have seen the flaw in the Dublin Bus staging area in seconds.

Maybe MCD when they employ Stewards they can ensure the Stewards stay on duty and are visible and communicating with the crowd until everyone is cleared out safely. Maybe MCD can ensure that they stress test exit plans for their customers properly which I would have expected given the farce at Slane a few days earlier.

Until you come back to us I will assume you are an MCD employee.

justhim

KerranJast wrote: »

Agreed but there wasn't enough of them to do the highlighted task. I witnessed one young steward trying to herd stragglers off the road in front of the buses, direct full buses on, flag down empty buses, keep 7 or 800 tired, impatient punters in check and stop said punters from jumping the queue. All that is impossible with for only 1 person. They should have had at least three stewards to manage the queue (one to deal with the front, two to keep an eye on either flank). They needed at least another 3 for each queue (one to coordinate the buses and two to keep idiots out of the road in the section between queues). As it was you have only one steward per queue and one poor sap with a walkie having to run the lenght of a football pitch to try and keep gob****es out of the road and to keep the busdrivers from leapfrogging each other and causing a crash.

I couldnt agree with you more. And even 3 stewards per queue (even the park and ride queue) would be nowhere near enough. you would need at least two or three times that amount, not to mention dublin bus which is a completely different story. What was very unfortunate however is that the frustrations, which though completely understandable and valid, were taken out on the already overwhelmed stewards. The account given by a previous poster where a young female steward was both verbally and physically assulted was by no means an isolated incident. I do not believe under any circumstances this can be justified.

emtroche

30 euros to park?!

MCD must hang.

blastman

Ah, but only 20 was for parking, the other 10 was for "local renewable resources" (or some such vague garbage, I didn't keep the car parking info thing that came with the tickets).

Starie1975

Nothing Rubbish about it. It's a fact. If there was "hundreds of them about the venue" It must have been Alf Steward and his family so. "All were wearing high-vis jackets which glared at you in the darkness" this proves a major point. The darkness, why was there a lack of lights after the gig and in the car park.

"there were two exits" where the hell was this exit?

Get your facts about Hillsborough right. I'm not comparing last Sunday night to that awful day but I just don't want it to happen again and my friend it can pretty close to it.

""i don't know how anyone wasn't seriously hurt" is a frequently recurring statement here, well it's glaringly obvious that nobody was seriously hurt because bar crowd violence or some form of motor accident there was no chance for anybody to be serioulsy hurt." Do you not understand how close people got in getting hurt and not acting now might lead to someone getting hurt or worse Have you not read the posts.


"also how can you blame stewards" not blaming stewards just a ack of them.

"it was unfortunate but unavoidable" :pac: joke right

"if you're too delicate then buy the cd, save yourself the "nightmare"" condesending Asshole

Slutmonkey57b

jebus58 wrote: »

I keep reading about the apparent lack of stewards and gardai at the event, which is rubbish. All were wearing high-vis jackets which glared at you in the darkness, there were hundreds of them about the venue, saying that none were to be found is ridiculous.

I personally saw: 3 stewards at the "pedestrian" entrance.
4 stewards on the fork in the road at the Punchestown signs, along with 2-3 Gardai.
At the top of each entrance line, one steward scanning tickets, and one searching bags/people.
Inside, I did not see one from the time I arrived until the time I left. I did not roam over the entire area.
I saw none controlling the queues for the bar at the entrance gate.
Exiting, I saw 9. And none controlling the bus queue.

That hardly ranks as "hundreds". Perhaps my numbers aren't entirely exact, but they're not off by a few hundred. I have no doubt MCD employed a lot of stewards. That doesn't mean that the stewards were properly deployed or where they should have been if the event was being planned and managed properly.

Secondly there were two exits, not one as also mentioned several times.

Yes - one for the car parks and one for the buses. Go to any large stadium and you'll find more than one or two exits. This is because those people have learned the consequences of not having a way for people to get out.

Yes the situation with the buses after the concert was anything but pleasant but the comparison with hillsborough is moronic and shows a complete neglect of context.

Hillsborough resulted from simple factors:
1) A large mass of people herded into a space that was too small for them
2) Very few, narrow, bottleneck entrance/exits that prevented free movement
3) No crowd control measures
4) No trained crowd control staff
5) No communication among those agencies responsible for the crowd management
6) A frivolous attitude to the potential problems.
7) A failure to heed warnings and lessons from previous problems and disasters.

There are far too many similarities to the Forest Walk at Slane, and the collapse of the barriers at AC/DC for people not to draw comparisons. Like I said before, swimming the river to get into Slane for free was an accepted part of the "Slane experience" ... until someone died doing it, then people decided it was a bad thing.

At hillsborough the fans all piled into a CAGE hearing the roar of the crowd as a goal was almost scored. the people at the front had no way out, nobody at the back had any idea of the situation as still more people crammed in. how can this be compared to people queuing for a bus at 1 in the morning?

There was a total loss of crowd control. On the one hand, is a large mass of people at the back pushing forward, who (with no lights overhead) can't see or hear what's happening at the front apart from the buses to get them out of there. On the other hand, is a tight crowd of people at the front, pressed against moving double decker buses and a roadway, with no way of moving to the side or to the back, and potential death or serious injury in front of them. The crowd is its own cage.

"i don't know how anyone wasn't seriously hurt" is a frequently recurring statement here, well it's glaringly obvious that nobody was seriously hurt because bar crowd violence or some form of motor accident there was no chance for anybody to be serioulsy hurt.

No, there were plenty of chances for someone to be seriously hurt. The fact that someone wasn't seriously hurt (that I know of) is not a whitewash guarantee that nobody could have. Throwing knives in the air is safe to a degree of control, but "It hasn't landed on me yet" isn't the same "can't land on me at all".

also how can you blame stewards for not chasing people who jump fences. these people (and if you haven't already guessed i'm a steward who was there) were there from 10am till 2.30am, that's a long day in anybody's language, and we are not allowed to nor do we want to use force at any stage or else we'd be finding ourselves in a whole other mess. do you want us to rugby tackle each idiot that thinks he's a hero for jumping a 3ft fence and dancing in front of tired people who've been waiting for hours nd just want to get home.

Nobody expects stewards to do anything life threatening. And the stewards I did meet were all as helpful as they could have been. MCD has a responsibility with the stewards it employs though:
They must be properly trained. If they aren't trained, they shouldn't be there.
They must be properly briefed and have constant communication. I asked the first steward I met when I got there at 7.30 who was playing on stage - he didn't know, and told me "ah sure that thing <pointing at radio> has been quiet all day anyway".
They should be properly deployed to maintain basic crowd control in the arena, report incidents and deal with the public.
They should be properly supported with trained security and Gardai as required.

From what I observed, MCD failed on all those counts. The customers and stewards are face to face, but is the organisers who are responsible for deciding and planning who goes where and who does what.

I don't blame the stewards themselves for anything I observed. I've worked in that sort of industry long enough to know that the people who are face to face with the crowd are not the ones who cause the problems - more often than not, they know the problems before the customer does.
I am shocked to hear that stewards were on shift from 10am to 2am. Apart from being illegal (although MCD can apply for an exemption), it's totally counter - productive. This is an all day event, and there is no reason two overlapping shifts couldn't be used.

i felt awful for all those ppl in the queues at the end, it was unfortunate but unavoidable. we stood at the top of the queues and helped to fill the buses when they came, we just had to wait and that was it, the majority of the crowd understood this, some hurled appalling abuse at us nd we just had to smile and take it, though after being on our feet for 15 hours straight another reaction crossed my mind briefly.

The stewarding staff have just as much right to be annoyed at the Promoters as the punters do by the look of things.

Slutmonkey57b

Kildare Council are holding a meeting with MCD on Monday regarding this gig. If you have eyewitness evidence, or better yet pictures, of what happened I would urge you to send them to secretar@kildarecoco.ie or customercare@kildarecoco.ie, or any of the councillors listed here.

Kildare Council and MCD have had complaints about the organisation of events at Punchestown before. Things are getting worse not better.

Keep your emails factual, simple, profanity-free, and limited to your personal experience.

Slutmonkey57b

From the Grant of Licence to the promoter MCD:

1.20 The Promoter shall ensure that all pedestrian routes (including the new pedestrian route from Gate 3 to Red Carpark Zone Two) are to a suitable standard and adequately illuminated.

Hands up who was "adequately illuminated" in the exits, or the queues for buses?

1.24 There shall be no charge associated with the park and ride facility at Goffs and Newhall and the associated shuttle bus service between the park and ride sites and the venue. The promoter shall provide an adequate free shuttle bus service between the venue and the park and ride sites, which shall be at a maximum interval of 20 minutes while the park and ride facilities are in use.

1.25 The applicant shall operate a free shuttle bus service between the venue and Naas Town Centre. During peak periods of demand, the service shall be operated on an "on demand" basis. Thereafter the service shall be operated at a frequency of not less than 20 minutes. At a minimum this service shall operate from 14.00hrs Sunday 28th June until 02.00hrs Monday 29th June. The Promoter shall submit proposals indicating, in particular, how it is proposed to provide the “on demand” service immediately following the event.

1.26 The promoter shall ensure that adequate bus shelter, sanitary facilities and litter bins are provided in the park and ride sites for event patrons.

Were you at the Park and Ride facility? Does this match your experience?

In fact, here is the decision document - have a read for yourself.

I find the "Roads" section very interesting.

Kobayashi

Soken to 6 people who were at gig and 4 have described it as a total shambles.

One got on bus at Goffs at 4.30 driver got as close as possible and told them to get off and walk if they wanted to get there on time. Got into venue at 8.30pm.

Another stood for over an hour in queue for bus before giving up and getting a lift to Craddockstown and walking from there.

Another spoke to the driver of her bus who told her he was a private hire. He'd been asked to keep shuttling people up and down as he'd been told, quote, "we don't have enough buses".

I'm told cars would be held up for an hour to allow buses to go first? Cars were leaving the red car parks immediately after the concert ended. I know, they streamed past me as I walked out the car park.

On another note, how someone was not killed after the gig is a minor miracle. People were streaming down the Ballymore Eustace road, it was pitch black, there are no lights and the road is barely wide enough to let two cars pass each other. Yeah, and half them dressed in black T-shirts bought at the gig!

Kobayashi

Quote:

the fact is that it was organised as well as it could be, simply put when you join 80,000 people in one location and all want to go home at one time there's going to be a problem with transport, the buses did a great job and everybody had left the grounds by 2am, that's 2 and a half hours which isn't "appalling" or "shocking," even at minor events like a debs it takes a couple hours for all the buses to come, unless mcd employ harry potter to sort things out at future events. i'm really curious as to where all this whining is coming from, concerts always came with huge queues and long journeys home it's part of the package, if you're too delicate then buy the cd, save yourself the "nightmare"

The bottom line is that the venue is not appropriate for a crowd of that size. Anywhere where the only access for 80,000 people is by a limited number of cars and buses is not acceptable. Not even pavements for pedestrians, I passed about a hundred people walking on the Ballymore road as I drove home. How no one was knocked down is miraculous, no lighting, pitch black. You can just about get away with it at Oxegen as arrival and departure is staggered due to camping. How they get a licence is incredible. €€€€€€€