Body & Soul - Ballinlough, Co. Westmeath - 14th - 16th June 2024

TenPicnics

Deleted

Fanirish

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122299546#Comment_122299546

B&s tied itself as a summer solstice celebration since its foundation.

Dreamweapon

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122295525#Comment_122295525

Yes, half an hour from my house lent it a massive charm alright.

dav09

Their website has been updated and Ballinlough is mentioned numerous times on the 'About' page as their home so I would reckon that pretty much puts that to rest. It's a 3 hour drive/treck for me each year but wouldn't trade that for a different site. Best festival site in the country. They have a beautiful main stage with natural amphitheatre, along with plenty of other infrastructure like mentioned, I remember one year even seeing a big area hidden with a bunch of workshops, where it looked like they were making various wooden art installations and pieces for the festival, although not sure if that area was built for the festival.

It's only 50 mins or so from Dublin so that's a big factor, although I think ideally if they ran busses from Cork/Limerick/Galway it would make it more accessible for people as I often hear people looking for lifts and such.

Hope ticket's and more information available soon. I can't wait for next year just hope it hasn't changed too much.

Fanirish

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122300177#Comment_122300177

the about section text has been like that for last few months since they cancelled this years edition.
I would say it will pivot more towards a wellness retreat weekender with some music and a small capacity. Don’t honestly see them jumping back into competing with BTP capacity level

dav09

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122300290#Comment_122300290

As a small festival it seemed to struggle post pandemic like many did, this year it seemed that was planned to be a big part of it but still very much sounded like a music festival, hope they don't stray too far away from that as they'll lose a good portion of remaining core audience, I can't see a huge audience in Ireland for that mentioned. What they had in their hey day was really special and has been enjoyable since. I presume BTP will be the weekend before the solstice like last year, hence the early announcement of dates as having them head to head will just damage both. At one stage I believe B&S was up to about 15k capacity so if that reached near full there is surely room for two decent sized festivals on opposite weekends

Fanirish

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122300311#Comment_122300311

B&s struggled to do 3,500/4,000 in 23 and 22. There just isn’t demand I think for both it and beyond the pale on around same time. Not even getting into financials and audience expectation that mean that low to medium sized festivals are sadly nearly impossible to make work.