Galway Summer Garden

Has anyone been to this? Thought there was a Thread on it but maybe not. Am curious to get others' opinions and thoughts about their experience there. There has been a lot of commentary on Facebook about volume levels emitted from the Venue..

TL/DR: It's not something I would personally recommend! Just curious what others think of it. Looking forward to others' relative and relevant Opinions of their experience there. *Note: Thread-topic is a chain of People's opinions of their experience there, ie people that attended the event.*

I went to Galway Summer Garden Festival Experience the other night. Oh My God lol. It was some experience alright! Not a pleasant one at all i.m.v. Firstly there was a Eircode given out for the location, but for some reason on Google Maps it was a right turn to Houses along the main road on the right-hand-side, and it was actually down a Road on the left-hand-side! Would have been a long time looking for something on the left hand side when Maps advised it's on the right like!! There is a Sign at the top of the road too but it needs to be double its' size. If the Sign was much bigger like it should have been, we obviously wouldn't have gone past the road then! They're making all this money too from all the Tents, the least they can do is invest in decent Signs!

No atmosphere at all to the place, considering there was a fair amount of people there like! No Summer-vibe or party-mood whatsoever, it wasn't great, only okay, mediocre at most. I really don't know what paying €30 is actually for! Certainly zero Festival experience anyway! It was just all-round very boring but that's just my opinion.

Then to get food and drinks there's an online ordering system. But, using What'sApp and scanning and clicking on links etc. etc. requires Internet! And of course! - they don't have WiFi! Well I think they had 2/3 Networks but possibly just for their own use. I had initially thought that providing or making Internet available to all the Tents wouldn't have been doable or viable, but actually now that I think of it again, - shure if WhatsApp is working and in-use they must have some form of Coverage or Internet, so it shouldn't be too difficult.

Went to the trouble of loading a Money-Card with a lot of money for that purpose specifically to use to purchase food and drink! But it was completely pointless with no Internet!

Why didn't they just make it a bloody standard text service, and people could then use WhatsApp if they wanted themselves, it's going to the same Phone Number done both ways anyway! Some people might have phone packages where it works out better for them to use WhatsApp, other people might have phone packages where it works out better for them not to use WhatsApp. Anyway, it shouldn't be the expectation present that Mobile Data has to be used, because someone might not have Mobile Data on their phone.

Payment is through own Phone and Bank Account, so if necessary to have to go finding other ways of doing things, like using a Friend's or someone else's WhatsApp, then additionally they will have to be paid back too, because the money will come out of that particular Phone! And a bit pointless if having to pay friend / other person cash to give them back the money owed like, when there is the option of paying through own Phone right there but you can't access WhatsApp or scanning or links with no Internet!!

Had thought to put money on a Card ready to use, obviously I didn't actually expect the place to have WiFi use either! It's just the Internet side of things never came into me head. If I was doing anything like that again, that was set out in that way, - I would make sure to buy a little bundle of Mobile-Data beforehand to use there for ordering. That isn't ideal for me either, having to buy extras for my Phone! Galway Summer Garden shouldn't be deciding for me what Phone package I use!! But no time for that kind of messing-around other people ordering for ya and having to use other people's Bank Accounts! It's un-necessary anyway.

Food was horrendous. Never been inside a Prison, but I would imagine this is what Prison-food looks like. It was all soggy. "Slop in a small Bucket" lol. It reminded me of Yop! Ya know the Yoghurt Drink Yop. More substance to be had out of a €2 Deli Bag from a Supermarket anyway t.b.h. for me. Thankfully the food wasn't too expensive there. They should have gone down the "Sausage-Roll route" lol, that's just my suggestion anyway. Sausage-Rolls etc. Or Fast-Food Highway Chips etc., more so than a Hotel-type offering. Much more hearty food! Never mind Chick-peas and Lentils or whatever they were lol they weren't great. Like I mean stuffing a Container with teeny-tiny particles of shapes / objects whatever is in it, and topping it with Leaves leaves a lot to be desired! Why didn't they even just do a couple of decent portions of 1 / 2 things altogether, like a substantial portion of Sweet Potato Wedges. That would have been so good! Am very very surprised they didn't do Pizza of all things! Maybe Pizza wouldn't have fitted well in keeping with the Hotel-rep. But, Pizza would have been so much more appetizing than Lentils and Leaves! Just my opinion anyway. More options and choices available is better.

They also don't have Minerals / Soft-Drinks on the Drinks Menu at all! That's funny and ironic for a number of reasons! One reason being that it appears all they want there is people to drink Alcohol!

The environs there is very dead and lifeless! There's much more of an ambience in a bloody Restaurant! And like I mean a Restaurant is a formal Setting, - that SHOULD not be a considerable comparison!! They have a huge outdoor space here to work with! They could have done so much more with it. As is usual with anything else, the pics look very different. It's barely decorated or anything. I really don't know what they're putting all the money into that they're making out of it.

And it's per head rather than per Tent. There are Pros and Cons to that. I guess, per head allows smaller numbers of groups to book which is a good thing, per Tent would probably mean only Full Tents of 6 can book. Down-side to that is, it's not actually really personal Tent at all. In one way, personally-specific should have the allowance / exclusivity to book extra people into personal Tent if there is remaining Tent capacity, but that may not be possible depending on over-all Venue maximum capacity.

Also, it's until 10.30pm NOT until 11pm. They should stop advertising that it is on until 11pm when it's not! That's wrong. And if they have to reduce it down to 10.30pm in order to be out by 11pm, what they should have done, is, taken a Fiver off the cost or something if they can't add a half-hour the other side. It's supposed to be 5 hours inclusive duration not 4andahalfhours inclusive duration! They do state you have to be off the Premises by 11pm, but they also have times listed of 6pm to 11pm!

Imagine all the Refunds there would be over a few weeks if they had to refund us all for that half-hour!

Then when it was all over and everyone was trying to leave and make their own way out and go about their business, there was some "Steward" dude on-hand in his hippy-hoppy glory lol, "directing traffic." He was walking up and down and in and out and back and over all over the main road! Nowhere near the venue! It wasn't anywhere near their In-take Entry-point. No need for him to be standing around the road at all. He had no right whatsoever to be telling Cars or people where to go! This is the main road! Absolutely nothing got to do with the Venue! Everyone was just going about their business and should have been entitled to do exactly that! He was hovering over people and blocking everyone. He was standing out in the middle of the road, no place at all for him to be, there was people milling about, and he could have been the cause and creation of a multitude of different dangerous situations.

So much hope was anticipated for this, I love music and the concept behind the set-up, the idea of Open-Air music seemed fantastic. But, it ain't all that really. It was very un-inviting and un-appealing. Because I love music I was very disappointed that it didn't hold any appeal. There should have been no reason for at least not enjoying the music, but everything was just a complete total and utter let-down.

I'm struggling to come up with anything nice about the place. I do have to say, for the most part, Social Distancing was widely observed and exercised. Oh they did have 2 Plugs in the Tent, that's a good thing right! That's about it sadly! Even left before being told it was time to go, now that shouldn't be how attending a Festival ends up!!