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Last year's Forever Young festival Billy Cahill

Forever Young founder defends closure of festival to ticket-holders on Saturday due to flooding

The Forever Young festival stated that ticket holders who were not already in the festival by noon on Saturday wouldn’t be admitted for safety reasons.

THE FOUNDER AND organiser of the Forever Young festival, which took place over the weekend in Co Kildare, has defended a decision to prevent day ticket-holders from entering the site on Saturday after heavy rain flooded the campsite.

The 80s nostalgia-themed music festival took place at Palmerstown House Estate in Naas, but ticket holders who were not already inside the grounds of the festival by 12pm on Saturday were told they wouldn’t be admitted.

The festival has stated that Saturday tickets will be valid for 2024′s Forever Young and that customers can avail of a refund instead.

Speaking on RTÉ Radio’s Liveline, organiser Sharon Alston responded to a complaint from a caller who had attended the festival and had said that poor organisation had led to flooding toilets and untraversable muck.

The caller, John, told the show that the different areas of the festival had no textured walkways to prevent festival goers from slipping after the heavy rain and that the smell of toilets was overwhelming.

“The water had come down from the toilet area and you were basically flooded walking around with your boots and your gear in contaminated water,” he said.

“You could smell it. The toilets were 10 meters away from the food area, where you get your coffee and breakfast roll.

“They’re using the excuse that Glastonbury had the same problem. Not necessarily, they have walkways at Glastonbury. They don’t have toilets next to the food area,” he said.

“It was a complete mud pie as you can imagine. There was a lack of organization there with the facilities that you’re paying good money for. You weren’t expecting to be covered in muck from head to toe,” he said.

Addressing John’s complaint, Alston said that staff at the festival did the best they could in spite of the adverse weather.

“Contrary to popular belief, we had a huge amount of preparation for the predicted rain that was to come but we got four times the amount of the predicted rain. It was a deluge,” she said.

“It was just uncontrollable. It rained solidly overnight and that caused issues around the site. For a 900 acre estate, you can’t cover everything in walkways.

“The safety officers that work on Forever Young are the best in Ireland.

“They will tell us exactly when things need to be done. We brought in double the team that we would have had over the weekend because of the weather.”

The safety team had determined that it was unsafe to allow more people to be at the festival’s arena area because mud would slow down evacuations in the event of an emergency, she said.

“It was a horrible thing to have to do. But it was 100% a safety decision.”

She added that the decision to close the festival to admissions was made at 10.30am on Saturday and communicated on social media by 11am.

“This is just one of those things that happens but our media and PR manager ruptured her appendix on Friday. So she would not normally deal with all these sorts of things and she wasn’t around.”

Alston added that some toilets at the venue were out of order for maintenance, not because waste was leaking into the surrounding area.

“They moved quite a few of the toilets, because the actual flooding wasn’t necessarily the toilets, there was flooding of water around the toilet.

“We re-sited toilets several times over the weekend, because there’s a real health and safety hazard when the toilets can’t be accessed to be serviced and to be emptied.”

The festival featured Hothouse Flowers, Bananarama and Jason Donovan, among other acts.

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    Mute Seosamh
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    Jan 13th 2021, 9:01 AM

    Big business are the only ones making serious money during this, small businesses fending for themselves.

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    Mute Michael Kelly
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    Jan 13th 2021, 9:07 AM

    @Seosamh: So you don’t welcome the creation of over 1000 jobs? And Aldi from what I know are decent employers. I see the same people working in my local one for years.

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    Mute Nioe
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    Jan 13th 2021, 9:20 AM

    @Michael Kelly: they’re not creating jobs. People don’t eat twice as much food they just change where they buy. They are just taking market share from other irish shops, corner shops, markets etc which probably provide more jobs per euro spent.

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    Mute Dobby Dooo Dooo
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    Jan 13th 2021, 9:24 AM

    @Nioe: We all have a choice of where we shop. I do a supermarket shop and still support smaller local shops for meat, fish, newspaper etc. And the local shops in my area are always busy…

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    Mute Jim Beatty
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    Jan 13th 2021, 9:40 AM

    @Nioe: nail on the head

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    Mute Nioe
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    Jan 13th 2021, 10:13 AM

    @Dobby Dooo Dooo: of course we choose where to shop. I have no issue with aldi or tesco or whoever. All I’m saying is that a certain amount of money is spent and certain number of people are employed in the grocery sector, which will rise with population. That does not jump overnight because a new shop opens, it just moves around with market share. It is not job or demand creation. It is market share expansion.

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    Mute Earth Traveller
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    Jan 13th 2021, 11:41 AM

    @Nioe: There are other factors too. The country’s population has grown by about 30 percent over the last 20 years. That creates new demand.

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    Mute Nioe
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    Jan 13th 2021, 12:13 PM

    @Earth Traveller: I said that in my comment above.

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    Mute Berkieahern3
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    Jan 13th 2021, 1:19 PM

    @Jim Beatty: you can be sure the nail you buy in Super valu is twice the price of the one in Aldi though!!

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    Mute Seosamh
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    Jan 13th 2021, 1:36 PM

    @Michael Kelly: My gripe is not with Aldi, it’s the so called government.

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    Mute Leitrim303
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    Jan 13th 2021, 5:46 PM

    @Nioe: who can afford to shop in a corner shop

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    Mute Stephen East
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    Jan 13th 2021, 9:27 AM

    Local Aldi and Lidl they restrict people going in but once in its a free for all, Always felt these shops workers are under a lot of pressure as i see them running around like headless chickens almost running with pallets barely looking if anyone is there and when i have seen people talking to workers they almost look irritated like they are thinking stop talking to me i need to get the shelves filled

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    Mute Brian Madden
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    Jan 13th 2021, 9:49 AM

    @Stephen East: I think the staff in my local aldi and lidl are very helpful. It’s not a free for all. People might browse longer in the meat or fruit and vegetable section. Do you expect the staff to move people along once inside?

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    Mute Sean Dalton
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    Jan 13th 2021, 10:33 AM

    @Stephen East: its personal responsibility when your in a shop. What do you want staff with cattle prods at each aisle moving people along?

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    Mute Tom Houlihan
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    Jan 13th 2021, 11:41 AM

    This is incorrect. They will
    Not create ‘jobs’. You won’t eat more because there is another supermarket in town. You may just buy less in the other supermarkets and they will lay off staff .

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    Mute Berkieahern3
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    Jan 13th 2021, 1:17 PM

    Fair play, they seem like descent employers. Same staff in the shop in my town for over 10 years now. And nice people aswell.

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    Mute Mary Walshe
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    Jan 13th 2021, 1:41 PM

    @Berkieahern3:
    And a lot of their products are Irish produced. Every so often they stock stuff by small producers starting out in business.

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    Mute Virgil
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    Jan 13th 2021, 10:38 AM

    As you enter Clifden, capital of Connemara, the first thing you see is… Aldi. Ah well, I suppose you can’t eat the landscape

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    Mute Joe Vlogs
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    Jan 13th 2021, 2:08 PM

    @Virgil: great thing too since it arrived. Locals are saved a one and a half hour drive to Galway or Westport to find a grocery store. Connemara is not just a summer holiday destination…people actually live here too.

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    Mute Declan McArdle
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    Jan 13th 2021, 9:14 AM

    What about opening stores in Northern Ireland???

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    Mute thomas patrick
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    Jan 13th 2021, 9:15 AM

    @Declan McArdle: take your issues to the Telegraph

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    Mute Cian Nolan
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    Jan 13th 2021, 9:55 AM

    @Declan McAr

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    Mute Declan McArdle
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    Jan 13th 2021, 10:14 AM

    @thomas patrick: Belfast Telegraph or the Toryograph in the UK?

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    Mute Pat Murphy
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    Jan 13th 2021, 11:09 AM

    @Declan McArdle: not in the eu so lol

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    Mute Aunties
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    Jan 13th 2021, 10:02 AM

    Beep beep beep.

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    Mute Maalouf
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    Jan 13th 2021, 12:32 PM

    I always shop and support local business. That’s why I only shop in Tesco Metro.

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    Mute Michael Kelly
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    Jan 13th 2021, 11:27 AM

    Good news we need it

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    Mute Dave
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    Jan 13th 2021, 4:48 PM

    A friend of mine loves working for Aldi but is always busy, she barely gets any free time and her day consists of “Manager required at till 3″ ” Till 4 will now be open”…

    Only for it to close 2 minutes later and a further 1 minute later shes back at it again ” Till 3 will now be open”

    4
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