OK so I woke up this morning and read this story posted on the Irish Times website about the events that occurred during the Phoenix Park festival in Dublin last weekend. I found the story was OK, but it struck me in such a way that I had to write a response. If you don't already know about what happened... Swedish House Mafia played to some 40,000 people at Phoenix Park last weekend, during this time there was nine stabbings and one man died from a drug overdose at the festival. The media has reacted shockingly and now there's a big thing going on in Ireland about it. I was not at this festival, but this is what I have to say from my own experience...
I have been to many festivals in the UK & Ireland as a performer and a spectator. Festivals were my greatest love from the age of 16 until about 22-23. What happened at Phoenix Park was very tragic indeed. I'd like to give you a few points of my own if you don't mind...
When I go to festivals in Ireland, compared to the UK, there is ALWAYS a much larger police force at the festival and it is ALWAYS much more strict when gaining entry. At Irish festivals the police search you intensely at the entrance. It has been so strict a few times in the past to the point that I don't want to attend Irish festivals anymore as they can be more like a concentration camp. It must be said also that the only thing I ever see this impeccably large police force do at a festival is take drugs off people and poor out their drinks. They're more interested in making as much small arrests as possible rather then taking responsibility to concentrate on searching for something greater, like weapons at the festival. The crowd attending the festival aren't dumb, they can see the police concentrate on drugs more then anything at the entrances. This agitates the crowd. In fact I believe the larger the police force the more agitated the crowd will get, thus there will be a higher risk of stabbings etc... May I remind you of Woodstock '69 - probably the greatest ever music festival, certainly the one that popularized music festivals, 3 people died at that out of 500,000 that attended over the weekend. There was no security at this event. Isle of Wight 1970, more security then Woodstock, but nowhere near to the level you find nowadays. There were no reported deaths at the festival, 600,000 attended over the duration. When attending dance festivals in the UK the police presence is nowhere near as large or intimidating as the ones in Ireland, and since I've lived here (7 years) I've never heard of them having to deal with this sort of situation like Phoenix Park.
I believe if we are to fix the problem we need to go the opposite way and take less force rather then enforcing more rules, safety regulations, and police.
Also it is both uneducated and lazy to blame the drinkers and drug takers of the festival. If you had ever done or even educated yourself on drugs you would know that when high it's nothing but peace that you want. Stabbing someone would not normally be on the agenda. This is the problem you see because this is the mentality the police then have at the festival. They think the drug takers cause the problems so they concentrate on catching them out - Wrong! The drug takers at the festival are guaranteed to be the most peaceful at the festival - Fact! I agree the drink doesn't help, but the Irish have been heavy drinkers for years, they didn't just start last weekend. Also It is unforgivably disgraceful to blame a musical genre like dance for this situation. Some of the nerdiest people in my school and college loved dance music and they had never taken a drug or carried a weapon in their life. In fact most of the people I knew who were taking drugs listened to 60's and 70's rock music, including myself. These stereotypes around dance music (which only arise in Ireland) must stop as they're completely false!
I'm going to go now so I don't rant anymore, but I do ask all of you to think about this and watch what you say and post because it could really have an effect on the future of music festivals in Ireland. I think it's quite simple... There was a few scumbags at the festival last weekend who did scumbag things and people were unfortunate. If you had 1000's more police there it wouldn't have made a difference. Don't believe the media hype because they'll build this up into a massive thing and they will demolish the future of Irish music festivals. There was a few bad apples, don't let them ruin the whole bunch!
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