2 days ago
Beyond the Pale: All hands on deck ahead of three-day music festival
Despite its recent challenges,
Beyond the Pale
is set to welcome almost 12,000 festivalgoers to the Glendalough Estate in
Co Wicklow
this weekend.
On Thursday afternoon, organisers and crew were battling not just the rain but time after 'a little bit of a hiccup' paused on-site operations last weekend.
Problems arose on Saturday due to financial difficulties. However, the following day, organisers announced that a 'very highly regarded operator' had stepped in, securing the festival's fate for 2025.
Site manager Bob Doyle said despite the hiccup, they 'clawed it back', and he thinks the experience 'brought the team even closer together'.
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'We had a little bit of a hiccup last week which threw a curveball into the situation,' he said.
'It was very upsetting and emotional on Saturday morning, but we got over that, we made peace with it, no one died and then we got up the next day and started putting up all the stuff we spent all day taking down.'
Promoter Declan Forde was unavailable for comment on the new investor, nor were organisers present on site able to offer any further clarity.
According to Mr Doyle, however, the financial aid has been 'a game changer'.
'We lost a load of days, but the amount of goodwill surrounding this festival is colossal. We've been getting phone calls going: 'We've heard about the story, can we come up and just volunteer?''
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Beyond the Pale festival to go ahead with help from 'a very highly-regarded operator', organisers say
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The recent downpours have added an additional challenge for this year's crunch-time preparation, with crews trying to keep the place pristine for the descending crowd.
Festival coordinator Emily Brennan has worked with Beyond the Pale since it started four years ago.
'It's always growing every year. It's on a good trajectory,' she said. 'It's grown physically in size – we use more of the site now and more stages. We've a lot more sponsorship.'
However, she said the current climate was tough for festivals, with everything far more expensive than a few years ago.
'There's just that cash flow thing in terms of the weeks before a festival. You make so much money at the festival in terms of bar sales and last-minute ticket purchases ... but you need to pay all the suppliers in advance so it becomes a real balancing act.'
Volunteer manager Arthur Caulfield is busy rallying his 100-strong troop, spread between painting installations and signage and 'a lot of light manual work'.
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How to stage an Irish music festival: From All Together Now to Beyond the Pale
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Mr Caulfield is looking forward to a bit of time off on Sunday, when he hopes to soak up the atmosphere and enjoy some of the acts like TV on the Radio who will headline that night.
Artist Leah Hewson created one of the festival's quirky installations which promises to provide some colourful contrast to the weekend's potentially drab weather.
She is enthusiastic about Beyond the Pale's commitment to platforming 'artists doing cool things' and says her work is part of a range of 'fun things to explore' on the grounds of Glendalough Estate.
A blend of neon and iridescence, the 'jigsaw-puzzle' installation has been 'reimagined to exist in an outdoor setting', having previously been exhibited in New York's Art on Paper Fair in 2022.
Scheduled for June 13th to 15th, the music festival features a line-up including
Jon Hopkins
,
Róisín Murphy
, TV On The Radio, Broken Social Scene,
Marc Rebillet
and Boney M.
