brian_oneill
New Member
- Joined
- Jul 10, 2007
- Messages
- 2
The guy joyriding the tractor was not good alright. The insurance surveyors were down the morning after apparently, and this will probably increase the cost of the public liability cover for next year's festival.
The other lowlight was the dickheads playing music all morning in the small white tent NEXT TO THE CAMPING AREA, near the bar. They were playing rubbish and you could hear them playing off a discman sometimes - they'd play a track for 30 seconds and then you'd hear a 'beep' as they clicked onto the next track. It was infuriating when you were trying to sleep. By all means I've no problem if people want to stay up forever, but this should have been put at the other end of the site. I really wish security had closed them down.
Other than those two things I think Mantua was great. It was possibly the best festival I've been to in Ireland in terms of the crowd, the accessible size, and the music going on until the small hours of the morning. I saw no rows or hassle whatsoever between people, the only aggro I saw was a couple of dogs getting nasty with each other! I think the Electric Picnic will be a nightmare now in comparison - if you ever got separated from people at Mantua it took about two minutes to find them again, your text messages didnt take four hours to get through, and everything was within five minutes walk. I met loads of new people, something which I didnt find happening at EP, and because Mantua was smaller, there was more chance of bumping into the same new people again (thus greater chance of scoring!). I dont think I've ever been to a festival or club in Ireland where the music officially went on until 7am, apart from illegal raves (and reportedly even the Creation one on Saturday night got shut down at 4:15am), this was a refreshing change from having everything close at 2am and all of a sudden thousands of people trying to scramble to get into the one place still playing music (cf. Body & Soul area at EP).
Mala from the Digital Mystikz was the musical highlight of the festival for me. I really like their music and the set was comprised of a lot of their own tracks. The Skatalites were the best way to get Saturday started properly, just as the sun was beaming down and the intermittent showers stopped. Alan O'Decal was good, first time I'd seen him play in a long time. And Jinx Lennon was ... interesting, Louth Beat Poets are a rare enough breed. It was a shame 65 days of static pulled out, I had heard positive reports about them, but I would have been torn between them and Mala as they clashed on the timetable.
Overall I really enjoyed it. I'd definitely recommend it to anyone. I was sorry to leave at Sunday lunchtime, as the sun was out and people were having pints again at the bar.. but maybe it was better in the long run to pack up and call it a day! Its not a "bou tique" festival by any stretch of the imagination, I'll let someone else describe the toilet situation (yet most girls I talked to were actually happier in the end to piss in the bushes, as it meant not having to go near a stinking portaloo), but there was food available most times without the enormous queues of bigger festivals, and no hassle whatsoever with bringing your cans of beer up to the music stages, something that really pisses me off about Electric Picnic - you pay hundreds of euro for a ticket and they still expect you to pay over the odds for a plastic glass of budweiser. The security and Garda presence was minimal at Mantua - but there was no need for them, there was none of the messing I've seen at other places before.
Well done to the organisers, I hope that the incident with the tractor does not stop it from happening again next year.
The other lowlight was the dickheads playing music all morning in the small white tent NEXT TO THE CAMPING AREA, near the bar. They were playing rubbish and you could hear them playing off a discman sometimes - they'd play a track for 30 seconds and then you'd hear a 'beep' as they clicked onto the next track. It was infuriating when you were trying to sleep. By all means I've no problem if people want to stay up forever, but this should have been put at the other end of the site. I really wish security had closed them down.
Other than those two things I think Mantua was great. It was possibly the best festival I've been to in Ireland in terms of the crowd, the accessible size, and the music going on until the small hours of the morning. I saw no rows or hassle whatsoever between people, the only aggro I saw was a couple of dogs getting nasty with each other! I think the Electric Picnic will be a nightmare now in comparison - if you ever got separated from people at Mantua it took about two minutes to find them again, your text messages didnt take four hours to get through, and everything was within five minutes walk. I met loads of new people, something which I didnt find happening at EP, and because Mantua was smaller, there was more chance of bumping into the same new people again (thus greater chance of scoring!). I dont think I've ever been to a festival or club in Ireland where the music officially went on until 7am, apart from illegal raves (and reportedly even the Creation one on Saturday night got shut down at 4:15am), this was a refreshing change from having everything close at 2am and all of a sudden thousands of people trying to scramble to get into the one place still playing music (cf. Body & Soul area at EP).
Mala from the Digital Mystikz was the musical highlight of the festival for me. I really like their music and the set was comprised of a lot of their own tracks. The Skatalites were the best way to get Saturday started properly, just as the sun was beaming down and the intermittent showers stopped. Alan O'Decal was good, first time I'd seen him play in a long time. And Jinx Lennon was ... interesting, Louth Beat Poets are a rare enough breed. It was a shame 65 days of static pulled out, I had heard positive reports about them, but I would have been torn between them and Mala as they clashed on the timetable.
Overall I really enjoyed it. I'd definitely recommend it to anyone. I was sorry to leave at Sunday lunchtime, as the sun was out and people were having pints again at the bar.. but maybe it was better in the long run to pack up and call it a day! Its not a "bou tique" festival by any stretch of the imagination, I'll let someone else describe the toilet situation (yet most girls I talked to were actually happier in the end to piss in the bushes, as it meant not having to go near a stinking portaloo), but there was food available most times without the enormous queues of bigger festivals, and no hassle whatsoever with bringing your cans of beer up to the music stages, something that really pisses me off about Electric Picnic - you pay hundreds of euro for a ticket and they still expect you to pay over the odds for a plastic glass of budweiser. The security and Garda presence was minimal at Mantua - but there was no need for them, there was none of the messing I've seen at other places before.
Well done to the organisers, I hope that the incident with the tractor does not stop it from happening again next year.
