The first day of All Together Now was hit with serious delays, with some attendees facing up to 8 hours of traffic before arriving at the festival in Curraghmore Estate, Co. Waterford.
While traffic plans were in place for All Together Now, festival organisers appeared to be blaming the delays on attendees using cars when public transport options would have made lightened the congestion.
"We have encouraged people to use Bus Eireann services, train services and car-pooling systems, to reduce the numbers of cars on the road. We appreciate people's excitement and expectations for this year’s sold out festival and with today's brilliant weather many of you travelled early to get here," the statement read.
Here's the statement in full, taken from All Together Now's Facebook page.
In many cases, people were left sitting in traffic only mere kilometers from the entrance to the festival. On top of this, local businesses and residents were severely impacted by the traffic and have vowed to lodge complaints with local authorities to prevent the situation happening again.
Even those who came by bus and car pooling simply left their transport on the side of the road and walked to the festival, rather than waiting in traffic for much longer.
#AllTogetherNow from 2-4 August, you leave on the 2nd you get there on the 4th 🙄 @Lindytwit @gordieryan @ATNfestival
— Debbie O'Callaghan (@OCallaghan1) August 2, 2019
However, the delays didn't end when attendees reached the festival. According to reports on the ground, signage at the festival for tent registration was poor, with some attendees either giving up entirely or simply waiting for queues to die down.
"The theme this year is sustainability."
As 30,000 litres of fuel burn in the apocalyptic traffic jam.#AllTogetherNow— Richard Pritzel (@richardpritzel) August 2, 2019
Did the Fyre Festival lads do the traffic planning for #AllTogetherNow?
— Sinéad Brennan (@sineadb_rte) August 2, 2019
In other cases, where people couldn't get into the festival, they simply turned around went back to Waterford. As of 10PM last night, traffic appeared to be at a standstill outside the festival, even though acts such as Fontaines DC were beginning their sets.
So far, organisers have not yet released any further statements and most of their social media is being bombarded with complaints regarding traffic, comparing All Together Now with Fyre Festival, the infamous music festival which was the subject of a Netflix documentary last year.
All Together Now runs from August 2nd to August 4th.
