Beyond The Pale Festival - 10th-12th June - Glendalough

Gus Ivey · 19-06-2023 4:40pm

Cracking weekend.

Fair bit of traffic on the M50 on Friday afternoon, but with 3 festival on the same weekend it was hardly a surprise! Left at a good time today (around 11am) and absolutely flew home.

Weather on Friday was fairly bad and that continued all through Saturday morning until maybe 10am or so. Then it cleared up for the rest of the day bar a small shower around 5pm. The weather was perfect on Sunday! The temperature all weekend was ideal, Didn't need a big jacket or even a big jumper. Was mostly in t-shirt, shorts & walking boots, with the waterproofs in the backpack just incase!

No phone signal was a bit annoying. I suppose it was nice in a way that people weren't using their phones as often, but would have still preferred to have better signal, just in case you lost friends or whatever. Not sure what could be done to improve the phone signal or maybe its just a poor location for it?

The toilets were the best I've experienced at any festival. Always clean and stocked up with toilet roll, although there wasn't any soap dispensers so the hand sanitizer was essential. There was only 1 toilet are in the main arena (beside main stage) it would have been nice to have another location for toilets within the main arena, or at least if you could access the toilets from the Big Romance rather than walking around which took a bit longer.

The water stations were very poor. There was a lack of them around the place and the water wasn't really cold. I ended up buying water at the stalls a good few times.

The crowd was probably the best I've experienced. Everyone was in great form that I came across and didn't see any trouble or anything like that. I'd guess the average age was well over 30+ years. Didn't see too many people in the 18-21 category. Although Sunday night in the general campsite closest the main arena was very loud until around 5am which got a bit annoying. Blaring Spice Girls, Steps, Cristina Aguilera and the likes with about 20+ people singing along. I guess the Security could have done a better job keeping them hush, but I guess with the Main arena closing around 11am, it was inevitable that the party would continue in the campsites.

The security done a good job overall and were very friendly, but they didn't seem to know much about the facilities. I asked 3 security lads about showers and two of them said there was no showers, the other said the only showers were in the glamping area. Then when eating food Saturday evening I randomly came across them and found out the times they were open. That being said, they also need a lot more showers to cater for everyone.

The checks were absolutely minimal. Barely any checks going in original, they just opened a cooler bag and closed it after 2 seconds without looking through it. Never got checked going into the main arena despite always having a backpack. And even went back to the car to get more cans on the Saturday and they didn't check my bag going back through.

I loved that everything was so close together. My tent to mainstage was probably a 5 minute walk so quite handy nipping back for cans, snacks, clothing or whatever. It was also great for getting to and from gigs. The three stages were all a stone throw from each other. It could do with a separate area off the beaten track a bit where you could go to chill out. Hopefeully with an increase in capacity, they will include something like that.

The food options were good and varied. 10-15 euro for main meals, 3 euro for cold drinks/water/tea/coffee. There was also a lot of bars and all in good locations. There was 2 main bars selling the usual, then there was also an Absolut Vodka bar, a cocktail bar, an aperol spritz bar, and a kopperberg bar. There was an ice-cream van, a place for smoothies, and various little coffee places.

The music was brilliant. Squeezed so much into the 3 days: Joy Orbison, WhoMadeWho, Jon Hopkins, David Kitt, Grandbrothers, Christian Loffler, Booka Shade, Hot Chip, Leftfield, Oneothix Point Never, Mano Le Tough, Jape, Just Mustard, Sofia Kourtesis & Max Cooper.

All in all, an absolute cracking weekend and would 100% return next year

AdamD · 19-06-2023 4:54pm

Was a little disappointed in the venue, just seemed to be lacking character compared with say B&S or ATN

VonLuck · 19-06-2023 5:16pm

I thought it was an excellent weekend. I was worried the weather would ruin things, but by Saturday afternoon it was fine and then Sunday was a cracker.

A recurring comment from people I spoke to was that everyone was very chilled and just a nice crowd overall. Might be partly to do with the age demographic.

Security was very laid back. On entry the guy asked me if I had any glass and I said no, so he just let me through without checking! There was only one guy who stopped me because I had two cans going into the arena. I just emptied one into a cup I had and then got through.

I thought the staff in general (including security) were a bit clueless. They seemed puzzled in the campsite road crossing point at when to stop people or cars. Bar staff were very young (some didn't even seem 18!) and got plenty of pints with poor head. Didn't really bother me, but the only negative observation!

I didn't notice the sound bleed too much. Maybe the odd time when there was a lull in between songs in the Selective Memory tent.

First time at it and would definitely go again.

jellybeano · 19-06-2023 6:13pm

What a perfect weekend! Zero complaints about anything. Loving all the upgrades from last year. Just the right amount of stuff on at all times. Lovely compact site. Not too much trekking. The crowd were the best. Le Boom were loving every minute of their set. Pure joy. Booka Shade were brilliant. Loved Leftfield obvs. Morcheeba were unreal. Sofia Kourtesis and Seinfeld were amazing 🔊🔊🔊 I think the site can handle another 2.5k capacity wise. Take a bow BTP, yiz knocked it out of the carpark. Deffo will be back next year.

Ferris_Bueller · 19-06-2023 6:18pm

Great weekend, would agree with most of what has been said already. I was a bit worried last week with the weather that was forecast but it didn't really impact the weekend at all, people seemed to battle through Friday night and then by lunchtime Saturday it was fine so we got very fortunate there.

It went very smoothly. No real traffic arriving into the festival at around 4.30pm on Friday, zero queuing getting in, very light security checks who only checked one of my smaller bags to see if I had any glass. The walk from carpark to campsite was a fairly short one compared to most other festivals. The 'open cans only' thing seemed to be a bit of a myth as I regularly brought 3-4 cans into the arena with me and never got stopped, although I did see some lads with bags getting searched. The arena is so small, only 2 mins to get from one stage to another which was handy if you wanted to tip from one act to another, I guess some soundbleed is expected if it's that small but it wasn't too bad and an improvement on last year I was told. The main stage was definitely a good bit behind schedule most of the weekend I thought?

Music wise it was good but not mind blowing. Now I missed a lot of what I planned on seeing due to not being with my usual group and not wanting to lose people at times, but I felt a lot of acts/DJs I did see were not at their best. Flight Facilities, Jungle, Horse Meat Disco, Mother DJs only alright. Ones like Pillow Queens, For Those I Love, Candi Staton, Joy Orbison who I've not seen before didn't appeal hugely to me. By far and away the two highlights for me were Le Boom on Saturday evening and DJ Seinfeld last night. Seinfeld was one of the best DJ sets I've seen in years and the crowd were very lively, he played a lovely mix of tunes but kept the energy levels high - great ending to the weekend, would love to know the name of a lot of the tunes he played. Le Boom set of the weekend for me, right up the front and so much energy from both the band and the crowd. A lot of their new songs are bangers and the songs in which Andy sings over now work so well especially in a festival environment. It felt very "real" as someone put it yesterday.

Food/Drink situation was good. Surprisingly never had to queue at any stage and there was a great variety considering it's a fairly small festival. Toilets were probably the cleanest I have experienced too and had bog roll all bar one time I used them, thought maybe there could have been more toilets but they were never too overcrowded just quite far apart.

Now for the star of the show all weekend... The crowd. Amazing. Was wondering on the drive home have I ever encountered a sounder crowd at an event and I don't think I have, so was happy to see others say the same on here. I feel energized after it having met so many sound, interesting and cool people all over the weekend. It felt like an experienced crowd who knew how to do festivals right, lovely friendly, calm atmosphere during the day but felt very loose at night time but never over the top. Due to it being small you'd regularly bump into the same people again and again which helped the atmosphere 100%.

A few small cons:

Phone signal - it was a bit of a pain in the arse having virtually no phone signal all weekend. I'd usually have mine on Airplane mode anyway but there are times where you need to make a call/text etc. Arriving in for instance, we had no clue where our group was camping and neither of us could ring anyone due to having no signal. After wandering around with the gear for 30 mins we luckily stumbled across them but we thought we were going to have to pitch up solo. Over the weekend I was more reluctant to go off solo later in the evening as there was the real possibility of not being able to find/contact anyone again so it meant missing out on a couple of gigs. Even Saturday morning in the tent waking up to the rain I couldn't even load the forecast. Not sure what can be done about it to be fair.

Early finish - It finished significantly earlier than most other festivals, with majority of stages closing at 1.00am Fri & Sat and only some smaller ones open until 3am. The smaller stages then couldn't deal with the capacity or demand when everyone flocked to these stages. With such an electronic heavy lineup it's a real shame you couldn't schedule some of these acts later into the night. Sunday then was very odd. DJ Seinfeld absolutely smashes his set, crowd going wild and then it's just over at 11pm. Way too early even for a Sunday. That would be the biggest red mark against the weekend for me. Crowd in the campsite was probably a bit too up for it last night as there was nowhere else to go, the tunes were still going loud and clear on a speaker/guitar by the time I fell asleep around 2.

Site/Location - considering it is in such a spectacular location in Wicklow, I felt the festival site was fairly plain. Nowhere to really go for a wander and the bulk of everything was located in the one spot in an open field. The 'rave in the woods' style stage was cool at night but as I said, struggled to cope with the crowd post 1am. Festival site definitely not a patch on the likes of EP, ATN or B&S.

Fanirish · 19-06-2023 6:26pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120736016#Comment_120736016

Re early finish: that’s a condition set by Wicklow Council on giving the event licence. When observations open next year feel free to lodge remarks in with Wicklow council on that matter. Observations from locals is why it was a. Early finish

Mrs Shuttleworth · 19-06-2023 6:28pm

Forget to mention this earlier but I had one quite unintended surreal moment last night. I was worried with the day trippers for Grace Jones and the general windup so I left around three quarters of the way through her set to get the motor. As no one knew the way back to the car park and I was taking a wild stab in the dark, I ended up hearing the rest of her set. So I found myself in the middle of the woods surrounded by the tallest of trees in the pitch black with not even a badger to be seen hearing Grace Jones sing "La Vie En Rose" acapella. I stopped and took the breathtaking beauty and unconventality of that moment all in and must admit despite drinking nothing but Sprite Zero all evening I shed a quiet few tears in the office bathroom this morning.

RINO87 · 19-06-2023 6:46pm

Sounds great folks. The sound crowd must be a carryover from knockanstockan🙂

Whipping Boy · 19-06-2023 8:04pm

To echo the above, we had an absolutely brilliant weekend too.

The good:

No issues getting down from Dublin, was 40 mins door to door for us with no traffic there or back.
Security staff were plentiful and relaxed with minimal checks. The 'free-flow' issue wasn't really enforced but the White Hag pints were far above the usual festival offering when we did dip into them
I spent the entire week fretting about the weather but bar a few showers on Friday it never really had an impact on things.
The site itself was nice and compact, and well laid out.
Such a nice and buzzy crowd - no gurriers (and I don't mean the band...) and no hassle

In terms of improvements:

More toilets on a different side of the main arena would be welcome
The scheduling felt off at times - main stage was running behind a good bit.
The 'rave in the woods' area was too small to deal with the demand - they should look to open up the field around it next year and make it a proper area
The sound in the main tent (Selective Memory) wasn't great at times for me but main stage was spot on
The Sunday finish is a bit annoying but can't be helped if it's a license requirement...also meant we came home Sunday evening which I was glad of today

The best acts we saw:

Fri: Baynk was a big surprise, Jon Hopkins was incredible as ever
Sat: Amazing day with Kittser, Grandbrothers, Christian Loffler, Hot Chip/Tinlicker, Leftfield and then Daithi blowing us away at 2am in the tiny little tent
Sun: Los Bitchos, Jape playing all the hits, then Max Cooper/DJ Seinfeld closed us out

Overall, would highly recommend it and I'd imagine we'll be back next year again

D.Q · 19-06-2023 8:46pm

Where did Mother play? Could have sworn the schedule said it'd be in the woods but just saw a video that looked like one of the tents. Was there a change?

Fanirish · 19-06-2023 8:51pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120736642#Comment_120736642

Yeah moved to selective memory after oneohtrix

Ferris_Bueller · 19-06-2023 8:54pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120736642#Comment_120736642

Yes there was, Mother played in the Selective Memory tent and DJ Deece ended up playing in the woods. Never heard why but I'm guessing they realised on Friday they needed another area open post 1am.

Ruanmcg · 19-06-2023 9:03pm

A few of the tunes I remember Seinfeld playing for the people wondering were: overmono - everything you need , bicep x Nelly Futado - glue , DJ Seinfeld - U. Absolutely insane stuff, literally had a few of us in tears (Some very nostalgic personal tunes and the last time our festival group were together before a few move to Australia). I remember thinking my life peaked right about then.

I actually can’t get over how good the festival was… There are definitely areas for improvement (programming, early finishes) but there was a magic in the air that I’ve only experienced at a couple of other festivals.

Had one of the best trips of my life on the Saturday and the feeling of exaltation still hasn’t gone away. Mano Le Tough did things to me on Saturday night, I’ve seen him over a dozen times but this was special. I remember people just letting our orgasmic groans at some of the drops he was pulling out.

I had a really good feeling from the get go as I was fighting a losing battle carrying all my stuff into the campsite, dropping cans all over the place and getting pissed on , and the amount of people who came up and offered to help me. Great balance of sound but also well up for it, everyone seemed to know what they were doing. Festival veterans for sure. I also loved sessioning with some older heads (I’m 27, average age was probably a decent bit older). Still loads of people in their mid 20s though.

Got feck all sleep all weekend and should feel like shite, but I’m still buzzing and so grateful to have been a party of beyond the pale 2023!

D.Q · 19-06-2023 9:44pm

Thanks for throwing those tunes up man. If you can think of any others throw them up too.

I'm exactly the same. Should be dying, **** glowing haha

RINO87 · 19-06-2023 9:50pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120736753#Comment_120736753

Love hearing reports like this. Sounds like the ideal festival!!

Anyone check out Thundercat on Friday? Would have been close to top of my list but no mentions yet. Rained out?

Toast · 19-06-2023 10:38pm

Did anyone make it to East Forest? We'd been up for Scattered Ashes the morning before and the arena was almost an hour delayed opening so we didn't bother dragging ourselves down for 10am the next day in case it was the same. If anyone has a report from the Bird Watching Walk that would be good too. Would have liked to have gone but it would mean missing other stuff.

Ruanmcg · 20-06-2023 11:45am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120737000#Comment_120737000

Went to Joy Orbison at that time but it was lashing as far as I can remember...

whelzer · 20-06-2023 1:47pm

What a great weekend, rain did little to dampen the spirits.

The site was perfect( we ended up in the top field and it was grand.

Seen most of my list and a few more besides. Leftfield and Max Cooper probably highlights for me.

Very little to complain about, the finish times would be probably the only thing.

crl84 · 20-06-2023 3:51pm

Great weekend, nothing to add that hasn't really already been said about the positives/crowd.

There were a few things I thought that could have been improved though:

Toilets in the main arena - just having one lot of them, beside the stage, was a bit annoying. Thought they could have had a few more at the other end of the site, but at least it was a small site, so it wasn't much of a walk.
Small site - positive of less walking was counteracted by everything being kind of on top of each other. Soundbleed was noticeable, especially in the smaller stages when non-dance acts were playing.
Layout - Related to above, it seemed strange that they didn't make the site a bit bigger, considering there was a huge amount of empty space opposite where the check to the main arena was (towards campervan area). They could easily have expanded the site a bit more over that way, and had things a bit more spread out, reducing soundbleed. That could also potentially join the woods/wellness area to the main area, although that would require a bit of a change of stewarding/barrier locations, as the (really underused) woods area was basically an extension of the campsite.
Location - again related to the above point, while the backdrop was lovely, the site itself was, essentially, a big field. Would have been nice to incorporate the aforementioned woods into the main arena, as ATN, Body&Soul, EP etc do (as well as other location features like gardens and old walls). There was nothing special about the location of the actual arena really, it was just some stages plonked in a field.
Campsites - don't think there was any urinals in the campsites, which meant lads queuing for cubicles to go for a p1ss. No other issues though, seemed like the right amount of space for the size of the crowd.
Showers - only open from 8-10 and 5-7, and seemed like completely individual cubicles, so people getting changed and taking their time in them, leading to big queues. None of our lot used them because of the queues and times, but seemed like a poor system, compared to more communal showers I've experienced at other festivals, which move quicker, due to having separate areas for showering and for changing.

Plasandrunt · 20-06-2023 5:55pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120736977#Comment_120736977

Seinfeld also played Mario Piu - Communication (Somebody Answer the Phone), an unreal remix of Bellini- Samba de Janeiro, a housey remix of Hands Burn- Good shot and then nice generic feel good tunes like You don't know me by Armand Van Helden, Sharam- Party all the time and Stardust - The music feels better with you.

He was absolutely brilliant.

As was the weekend overall, I had a great time.

D.Q · 20-06-2023 8:37pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120740687#Comment_120740687

We'll have the set pieced together soon haha

bodhrandude · 21-06-2023 1:10am

Is no one blogging this festival, where's the video clips?

r9mcgon · 21-06-2023 7:06am

Just to add my two cents, (and these points have been raised by others):

Pros (big pros!):

Sound - excellent everywhere I thought, tents and even the main stage (which I usually find is hit and miss).

Stage visuals - ditto, really impressive.

Crowd - sound people, campsite was good crack without being messy. Everyone was on it without falling all over the place.

Location - very handy from Dublin.

Staff - although many of them seemed a bit clueless, they were not intrusive or obnoxious.

Cons:

Lack of toilets - there really should be more in the main arena - seemed too much of a trek - especially for women. And no urinals in the campsite seems crazy.

Signage - Small and misleading, we're all a bit dopey on day 1 so BIG signs would be helpful. e.g this way to drinking water, this way to car park. The lighting as well seemed poor in some areas, walking to the car park on Friday night through the forest was like being in a WWI movie - total darkness and mud.

Things finishing early - not much happening after the main stage ended, the rave in the woods was rammed, and the lack of toilets nearby was a bit of a downer. Having said that, I was wrecked by 0200 and ready to lie down, but many others were not...

Artwork - The site just didn't look that nice, seemed a bit workman-like, unadorned metal fencing etc. I may be a bit spoiled by Body & Soul and ATN in this regard.

We had to leave on Sunday so missed out on a lot of good acts, but the Friday and Saturday line-up seemed to be mostly electronic - which I enjoy, but a bit more rock or indie during the day would be good I think.