Why are our festivals so crap compared to rest of europe

I concur, a most excellent attempt at threading.

Weather too.

Give us more details man!

David McWilliams fee is higher than kylie’s

it’s called sarcasm

neither of the two major camping festivals in ireland are in that fertile May/June/July window. So the international acts around then are playing headline indoor or outdoor shows instead. See craziness of MCD June schedule. 

There are extra costs for festival promoters due to the fact it’s in ireland. Equipment etc needs to be shipped here by sea/plane. 

Bands need higher fees to come here to justify extra costs of travelling here. 

Festivals then have to become more picky about those acts to book as same budget as as uk festival goes less. 

We are a country a 13 x smaller than uk so a festival theme that works in the UK doesn’t necessarily have a sustainable festival audience here I.E a download festival. 

Honestly none of the uk or europe festival line ups for 2025 are jumping out yet as great tbh. 

Also no point comparing a primavera line up or a rock werchter line up to likes of EP. One has no camping whereas rock werchter has 3 stages. 

Absolutley !!

Im convinced that a "Sunstroke" type day event would sell very well … RDS or Dalymount (?) or even Tallaght Stadium ….

Rock music has a very strong following right through all the age groups!

ah yeah it’s a indie nostalgia festival aimed for late thirties/40 year plus audience.
doing the job well this year

electric picnic has the same bookers as reading/Leeds and it’s does combo deals for acts to play all three every year.
artists/agents work with different promoters in different markets so it’s never easy

I'd say our festivals are better, or at least just as good, as most festivals in Europe, overall.

Take Spain, for every Primavera or Mad Cool, you have several fairly bog standard, 2/3 stage "festivals", in a country with 10 times the population of Ireland (and weather that makes things logistically a lot easier).

Go to many central European countries and they have maybe one festival thats akin to EP, a few that are similar to ATN or BTP (with worse lineups IMO), and lots of smaller things that aren't worth talking about really. Austria and Czech have double the populations of Ireland, yet I don't think their festivals are twice as good.

Poland has 7 times the population of Ireland, and this is their biggest/best festival, I'd argue that EP is much better:

All the northern/western Europe festivals significantly benefit from easy public transport options too, so a festival in southern Germany or France or Belgium doesn't just have a potential audience in their country, they can easily attract attendees from other countries who can hop on a train and be there in a few hours.

I wouldn't be so certain it's dependable. While it has a following it doesn't translate to ticket sales.

Widely regarded rock headliners consistently fail to come close to selling out an arena here or even be put in there in the first place.

If Judas Priest, BMTH or A7x aren't doing the numbers well it makes no sense for instance why a Parkway Drive, Blind Guardian or Ghost topped event would have a (Satan) prayer of shifting >20k tickets.

I think the torrential rain in July 2023 killed alot of the momentum for festivals especially amongst the middle aged, I think forest fest in Laois was a wash out with people unable to get in and out of car parks with muck, another one outside naas was also a wash out and is now gone bust.

The Rory Gallagher festival in Donegal is very successful and has a fan base that comes from all over the world every year. However it is not as weather dependent as it is based on the infrastructure of the town and pubs and outdoor stages, not setting up everything from scratch in the middle of a field. I think that set up saves on costs and is cheaper and easier to do and benefits alot more people