lack of heavy music festivals in Ireland

[Necro Red]

What was the name of that festival that was going to take place in punchestown with faith no more, deftones, mastodon, at the gates etc etc? Was cancelled cause of covid-Sunstroke was it? Had an unreal lineup too

That was the Sunstroke one I was on about. That was our best hope of something.

Killing Joke were going to be there and all

had tickets for that. It was such a let down that didn't go ahead. Great lineup. Maybe it could happen again? Or actually just happen ha ha

[jpm4]

It was a once off I think but that Burning Oak weekender thing in Cork back around 2011 was great - Triptykon, Rotting Christ and Primordial headlined.

[Eoin McLove]

Philfest Phil tried to get this 3-day Iron Mountain camping fest going back in 2020 at a site with 300 max capacity, and it looked like it might have actually went ahead but it got fucked by covid. Would have been interesting to see how it played out:



Just skimmed through the old thread there https://forum.metalwarfare.com/index.php?topic=579.msg7970#msg7970

Got a giggle out of Leather Mike, the dirty fucking pedo, posting under the username 135150, mouthing off at Phil and calling him 'crazy' and an embarrassment. The neck on him to be throwing shade at anybody after his scumbaggery!

Looks like he'd have easily hit the 300 mark with band members alone 

[Trev]

Didn't there used to be one in Waterford for a couple of years? Can't remember if it was a weekend thing or just an all dayer

[Squigs]

That was LowEnd - I think there was only ever one of them, 2009?

[yknaa]

Nice piece here about Sunstroke(s) in Dayler - mention of the MoR in the 80s there too. https://comeheretome.com/2018/04/06/here-we-are-now-entertain-us-sunstroke-festival/

Setlist line ups: https://www.setlist.fm/festivals/sunstroke-5bd6afc4.html

[Eoin McLove]

I remember nothing at all about seeing Mudhoney at Sunstroke 95. Weird.

[Shardknife]

A proper festival here with camping would be so hard to make work. There's a lot of logistics and legal red tape you have to go through if you want to have any hope of making it legit and repeatable, you can't just book bands and throw a stage together and let people camp next door. Festivals all over Ireland doing more popular music fail every year.

I hate to say it but metal fans are too picky to get good behind a real festival. You see people who have never gone to the Siege even though it runs twice a year, is free, has everything from Rock to Experimental and everything inbetween. It's indoors and has ran for about 30 times now. If you book a kickass camping multi day festival here people will complain about the bands or find other ludicrous excuses to not go. You see so many metal heads walking around in metal shirts and they haven't a notion of going to anything that's not the biggest bands.

We aren't helped by the fact that we're on an island at the edge of Europe so bands have to ferry/fly over. Bands don't want to come here on a one off show, they tend to come as part of a tour schedule so getting a lot of bands for an ideal lineup is really unlikely. I'm not sure if it's the case but I heard Sunstroke was being ran around the Download season and I've heard bands have now got an exclusivity clause that prevents them from playing Ireland an UK around those dates making that happening on the same scale unlikely.

[The Butcher]

Exactly, for bands to come here it's more ferries, freight, drivers, crew, adding another non gig day of traveling to their schedule. Every single cost post covid + post current wars has ballooned. Insurers treat metal differently too, identified as higher risk.

Then you think of the competition, we ain't gonna compete with the long list of festivals well established across Europe, esp with our population size. It's a big financial risk I don't think any promoter is going to take for that scale.

Agreed that Sunstroke was probably a good chance of building on something.

[Dronesandtones]

Seems like the Sunstroke festival was probably the best chance of getting something going and building off it. Still, class smaller festivals and events dotted through the country.

[astfgyl]

It was a once off I think but that Burning Oak weekender thing in Cork back around 2011 was great - Triptykon, Rotting Christ and Primordial headlined.

I think those names are too small to do anything other than siege 2 and that's already sorted like who here is honestly going to more than one thing of that calibre in a year unless they are playing at some of them?

[Eoin McLove]

The metal population in Ireland is tiny so you'd be relying on Europeans to make up the numbers, but with so many great, established festivals in Europe already they'd have no need to fly over here (what, Australia?) other than to get pissed on Guinness. There was a run of a few years 15 to 20 years ago where there were really fucking great underground gigs on in Dublin- around the time The Pint was the venue- and that did attract quite a few foreign heads over, because they knew the session would be good. At that sort of scale, Dublin was savage, but Roadburn in Dublin? It's probably less likely to catch on. But who knows!

Imagine having something on over a weekend across Temple Bar, for example. The Button Factory and Doran's (if it even exists at this stage) and then across the bridge to the one on Middle Abbey St. Could be doable if you attracted the crowd. Food for the imagination if nothing else