Yep I agree with the beer queues – we actually didn’t even bother with any more pints after our first trip to the bar – just not worth it.

Sounds like you got very unlucky with the bus going back, and being shepherded into it. I remember spotting that happening when I left, and made a point of walking all the way up to one of the first buses – it was on the move about 4 minutes after we got on – which was something at least. Traffic was still horrible though – I suppose to be expected on the small roads, like you said yourself.

I’ve been sticking to The Marquee in Cork this year – all within walking distance for me!

Kevin – Who said it was mostly Dubs? Just because most of us travelled from Dublin it doesn’t mean we’re some sort of southside Tiger Cub club.

Having your own fun day is your own prerogative. Check the title of the post: I said the gig was great. I just don’t particularly enjoy not being able to go to the toilet for five hours because MCD haven’t arranged fields for the empty buses to be parked in. You came from Donegal, a four-hour trip was par for your course. You were prepared for it and knew what to expect. There’s a huge difference in willingly volunteering four hours of your life and having it unexpectedly taken from you because of organisational incompetence. Many of the people travelling back to Dublin were intending to travel onward to the South and South-East – what are they supposed to do when their bus gets them in over three hours late? Hope that Bus Éireann decide to arbitrarily run Early Bird services to Enniscorthy and Bray and the likes?

Show me one of the above comments that actively complains about the distance walked. All they do is mention it as a passing detail in their bigger problems.

And as for making it better for the rest of you – eh, how? Were you put out by the people sleeping in the ditches because they couldn’t get home? Nobody got in your way or disturbed you by calling Liveline or commenting on a blog post. Boo freaking hoo yourself.

the concert was great, had a really good time, we were right up the back of the feild. this may sound really really naive but the amount of drugs i saw some people taking was shocking, there was a guy lying on the ground unconcious for hours. his mates handing around drugs like they had a 10 year supply of the stuff. I thought people usually hide the fact they are taking drugs. these people had 13-14 year old kids with them and it did not bother them taking drugs in front of their kids. the first time i saw the police inside the grounds was shortly after Oasis started. someone mentioned earlier that there were 3 bars, i only saw 2, havent a clue where the 3rd one was, one at the entrance and one to the right hand side right by the castle, where was the other?

However Saturday night was fairly ludicrous. I was right at the front barrier (not pit but front of the rest) so was slow leaving the venue. In saying that myself and my mates didn’t hang about and moved fairly briskly right up to the exit where we didn’t move for quite a while due to the human traffic. It was probably 11 or so at that time. Have just checked my phone for a text I sent and it was a full 90 minutes of solid walking (brisk pace so 7-8 km I reckon) before we reached an empty bus. From what I hear from you it seems we were blessed to have ended up on a bus so near the front as we were back in Dublin about 2.

Back to Slane, most of the walking we did was in pitch black conditions. There was an occasional ultra bright light shining on the road but these only served to kill our night vision and leave us such that we couldn’t see 10 feet ahead. Once we reached buses there was just km after km of buses and cars and people all crawling along trying to share the same stretch of road. I’m shocked nobody was seriously injured.

As for the queues for the bars, no sense was applied at all. Fewer people pouring and more serving customers would have helped a LOT as well as your simple point of letting people take 4 beers (perhaps with lids and trays as in the O2).

The stewarding of the queues was very hit and miss with ignorant morons using brute force and intimidation to skip ahead of everybody else. I saw Gardaí drag two guys away after a punch up in a queue beside mine. As I also saw a guy being tightly restrained on the bridge over the Boyne while walking to the Gig at 3pm I was shocked that the total arrests figure was only 10. I think there must have been a policy of containment rather than arrests given it’s highly unlikely that 1 guy would witness 30% of the arrests that took place.

If that was the policing strategy it was wholly inappropriate for a gig like that. In a situation where crowds are so large, isolated incidents of anti-social behaviour are likely to go undetected. As a result any incidents that are detected should be dealt with very harshly i.e. liberal use of batons and arraignment before a special sitting of Louth District court that night.

Perhaps my intolerance in the last couple of paragraphs is enhanced by the late hour. We’ll see in the morning!

Enjoy the gig and when it’s time to go, just go back to the parking spot and sleep it off until the next morning, usually the first person to wake up and can drive, takes the van back to Dublin without hardly any traffic in the way.

We did that for RHCP/U2 back in 2001 I think, and it was an enjoyable experience but in the recent years there wasn’t much attraction to go back again due to MCD being really bad event organizers.