Irish festivals are definitely the most exciting aspect of Summertime, with the sheer amount of variety in them across the country ranging from Electric Picnic, Life Festival, Body & Soul and countless others, not to mention the emergence of Autumn/Winter time gatherings like BD and Metropolis.

But with every festival comes a selection of negatives, but negatives that are easily recognised. We compiled a list of the 25 things that we all hate about Irish festivals.

1. Corporate Nonsense – It’s pretty hard to escape the banality of normal life by trying to enjoy yourself at the DiscountJetAirways x Super-Caffeine-Filled-Energy-Drink Stage.

2. Trainspotting Toilets – The less said on this the better.

3. Watered down piss beer – €8 for a half filled, soon to be spilled all over you pint of piss water.

4. Getting pissed on – 72 hours of rainfall on the exact weekend you need it to stay dry – what are the chances?

5. 16+ Festivals – Nobody wants to jump around at Kendrick Lamar having to dodge 16 year old’s puddles of sick.

6. Charcoal Grill – These chancers have been stealing a living, they make McDonalds seem like Michelin Star cuisine. 

7. No Late Late Show – You’ve paid good money to be in a field for three days, yet they still tell you when you have to go back to your tent. More 24 hour arena’s please!

8. Repetitive line ups – It’s fairly hard to get excited when _______ are playing their third show in Ireland in the last 12 months.

9. Paying into an after party – You’ve just shelled out upwards of €75 for a day ticket to a festival, now you’ve to pay €20 into a venue to see an act you’ve just seen. OK….

10. Clash of the Titans – Stop putting similar acts on at the exact same time.

11. Win a slot competitions – This is mostly for bands, win a slot by sending in your demo, play for free to an empty stage at 10:30am, but first you have to sell 200 tickets to your mates.

12. Bad Gack – Let’s face it, when you’re desperate at 4am at the Rave in the Woods you’ll pretty much take anything, that doesn’t mean the person you’re getting it off can give you the Bath Salts circa 2010 and tell you it’s Pablo’s Reserve. 

13. The tent pitch lottery – You’ve trekked for miles with your bags and cans, you’ve arrived at a perfect area to set up camp, you set up your camping chair and excitedly open the first can of the weekend, just as you begin to relax and get excited, then 35 knuckle- draggers from Mullingar with speed lines shaved into their heads plonk themselves down beside you and start blaring Tïesto on their phones. Your brain fast-forwards to 12 hours later to them slashing your tent and fleecing your cans.

14. Sound Clash – Move stages further away from another, simple.

15. Bindi Cindies – Stop appropriating other peoples’ culture. People in India don’t wear O’Neill’s tracksuits at their festivals so you shouldn’t wear bindi’s at ours.

16. Ross Hemp on Gangs – You know the people. They wear normal, everyday clothes all year round but as soon as it’s festival season they don themselves in the finest hemp hoodies and harem pants as if they’re just back from a year long trek around the Andes. You’re fooling no one!

17. From KPMG to DMT – Much like #16, This lad’s probably called Niall, works 50 hours a week in investment banking down the IFSC but as soon as a weekend festival comes along he becomes a living narcotic nightmare, by 7pm on the Friday they are unable to walk or breath unassisted and will become the bane of your life. They tell you they’re getting out of their banger to dive deep into their own mind and become spiritually enlightened but in reality they’re just getting as far away from the excel spreadsheets and Dicey’s afterworks drinks as possible.

18. ATM Marathon Set – Queueing up for 4 hours to find out you’ve insufficient funds in your account is not the way you’d imagined Electric Picnic.

19. Shit Merch – We’ll pass on the €45 Fruit Of The Loom Hoodie, thanks.

20. Tokens – Queue for two hours to use real money to pay for fake money to buy fake pints, inspired!

21. Someone pissing on your tent when you’re asleep – you’re feeling abit worse for wear so you’ve headed back to the tent to try and get a little break inbetween your favourite acts, the last thing you want is someone relieving themselves 4 inches from your head. 

22. Wok n’ Roll – Cockroach flavoured slop. Doesn’t even contain any MSG’s, just get a Domino’s Van into the campsite. 

23. Squad Goal Posed Photo – The entire staff of Nando’s Blanchardstown are ready to take Body & Soul by storm (Oxegen’s been gone ages so they need to go somewhere), but not before they perfectly sit their Ellesse bucket hats on their heads and not before they take 1100 photos for the “gram”. 

24. Oversold festivals – I love the taste of the lad in front of me’s sweaty back at the main stage, nothing pleases us more than feeling like you’re recreating the wall-scaling scene from World War Z. 

25. Undersold but saying they’ve only 20% of tickets left on social media- 2 hours on a bus to arrive at a tumbleweed conference soundtracked by deep house. 

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