Marlay Park Concerts 2023

Updated: information on public transport route diversions.

Every year, Marlay Park hosts a number of events including concerts. The income from the Marlay Park concerts contribute to improvements to the park throughout the year. I’ll try to add and continue to update all the available info about the concerts onto this page.

Most of the info here is relevant for Ballinteer/Rathfarnham residents and general park users. If you’re going to one of the concerts, skip to the bottom for info you might find useful.

This year there will be 7 Marlay Park concerts, up from 6 in 2022. A number of changes have been put in place for the Marlay Park concerts in 2023, to improve on the experience that locals, park users, concert-goers, commuters, businesses and transport providers had in 2022.

Date	Gates open	Concert
Tuesday 20th June	4pm	Arctic Monkeys*
Friday 23rd & Saturday 24th June	4pm	Dermot Kennedy
Wednesday 28th June	4pm	The Weeknd
Saturday 1st & Sunday 2nd July	1.30pm	Longitude Festival
Tuesday 4th July	4pm	Def Leppard and Motley Crue

Marlay Park facilities

There will be different arrangements for park access this year compared to previous years.

Marlay Craft Courtyard, Boland’s Café, Wicklow Way Café, all-weather and grass pitches, tennis courts, boules court, putting green	Open as normal, except closed all day on concert days
Playgrounds	Open as normal, except on concert days open up until midday
Cricket pitch	Closed from 9th June to 14th July
Weekend markets	For June and July, the markets will be up beside the College Road car park. Markets closed on days of weekend gigs 24th June, 1st July, 2nd July.
Miniature Railway	The Marlay Miniature Railway will be closed until 8th July.
Paths in the park	The paths near Grange Road will close on concert days. The rest of the paths will be open up until 6pm. There are maps in the park showing which paths.
Grange Road car park	Reduced car parking capacity from 7th June to 10th July. Closed on concert days.
College Road car park	Open as normal, except on concert days open until midday

Keep an eye out for signs like this in the park sharing all up to date information.

The park will be closed for use at 6pm on concert days.

If you feel that any aspect of the above plan isn’t being adhered to, please get in contact with me.

On concert days

On concert days, there’ll be a security and stewarding plan aimed at minimising inconvenience for local residents. This plan is the responsibility of the event promoters, Festival Republic, approved by the council, An Garda Síochána and the National Transport Authority. On the day, the council’s role is to make sure that the event plan is kept to.

As with previous years, the stewarding will be a mixture of An Garda Síochána, licensed professional security personnel and local volunteers. Local volunteers are organised through Ballinteer St John’s and if you volunteer enough hours, you get free tickets to the event. You can sign up here.

Traffic management measures:

• Signage will be much improved from last year so there should be fewer concert-goers wandering around lost in the area.
• Estates directly beside the park will have residents parking permits issued and stewards posted at the entrances. I have already asked that a number of estates be added to this. Please let me know if you feel your estate should have restricted access and parking permits during the concerts.
• There will be traffic management on Grange Road in front of Marlay Park all day on concert days, including a left-in and right-out only for entering/exiting Lidl. The whole road and some surrounding roads will be closed from 10pm on concert nights by order of An Garda Síochána in the interests of safety. The Gardaí will re-open the roads once they feel it’s safe to do so.
• The Supervalu Ballinteer car park will be used as a drop-off/pick-up point before and after the concerts so please bear this in mind.
• All coaches should be dropping passengers directly into Marlay Park or at other official coach drop-off points. Last year there were some operators dropping passengers further away which meant they were wandering lost through estates. If you see this happening, please report it immediately and you can also let me know.

Public transport on days of the concerts:

• Dublin Bus have listed details of bus diversions here. There will be changes to the 14, 16 and 61 buses from 21.30 until last bus each night of the concerts.
• Go Ahead Ireland have published a less clear update on their website here related to diversions to the 75 and 175 from 21.30 until last bus each night of the concerts.
• Unfortunately, there will be no extra public buses provided by the NTA to Marlay Park on the evenings of the concerts. So if you rely on nearby buses for your commute, please bear in mind that buses will be much busier than usual.

Noise and litter management:

• The licensed curfew for the concerts is 11pm.
• Noise levels will be monitored by an Event Noise Consultant, sound engineers and the HSE. The noise levels should not exceed 72db (a) LAeq over a period of 15 minutes. The HSE’s noise report will be made available on the council’s website after the concerts.
• There may be pyrotechnics during the concerts.
• Festival Republic will have their own litter management team both in the park and in surrounding areas, supplemented by the council’s own staff.
• There are large bins situated on roads leading to Marlay Park so that there are plenty of opportunities for concert-goers to dispose of their rubbish as they go.

Issue	On concert days
Litter	Hotline – 01 255 5179
Noise	Hotline – 01 255 5179
Safety/security such as stewarding etc.	Hotline – 01 255 5179
Crime/anti-social behaviour	Dundrum Garda station: 01 666 5600 Rathfarnham Garda station: 01 666 6500
General	General info and concert updates: evntz.ie Longitude residents information Promoter contact: [email protected]

The quickest way to address any of your queries should be through the above, but if for any reason you’re not satisfied with the response, you can contact me through details here. I live only 10 minutes from Marlay Park so I’m available should any situation arise.

Going to Marlay Park concerts

If you’re going to a concert in Marlay Park this summer, the best advice going is to take public transport to and from the gigs. Trust me, I live 10 minutes walk from Marlay Park and I see what goes on. See below information I’ve gathered from different places and my own personal experiences:

• Public transport:
  • Coaches will run from all over the country. Tickets available here.
  • Balally and Dundrum Luas stops are both around a 30 minute walk from Marlay. There will also be shuttle buses running from the Luas. Tickets available here.
  • There will be buses running from town (Custom House Quay). Tickets available here.
  • The public bus services usually get overcrowded on concert days and get re-routed because of road closures. Not worth relying on.
  • There’s also an airport bus that goes from the Red Cow Luas stop to 20 minutes walk from Marlay. You can book tickets in advance here.
• Active travel:
  • Cycling: If you’re comfortable cycling and live within 10km, I’d say it’s your best bet for getting in and out of the gigs quickly. I live locally and get almost everywhere by bike. Before I lived here I cycled to a gig in Marlay and it was all fine. Look up directions on Google Maps and look at bike parking options here. There are also loads of informal bike parking options in the area like poles and railings. More supervised bike parking facilities have been provided at the corner of Stonemason’s Way and Broadford Road following my requests.
  • Walking: If you live within an hour’s walk of Marlay, your best bet is to plan to walk. It will probably work out quicker than driving, public transport or queuing for a taxi.
  • Please follow the instructions of stewards if walking or cycling. There are some estates that are off-limits for access.

• Taxi/ lift:
  • There will be a pop-up taxi rank set up on Brehon Field Road and it’ll be well signposted.
  • The drop-off and pick-up point for lifts will be Supervalu on Ballinteer Avenue. Every year people think there’s some better option and inevitably get stuck in traffic and struggle to find their passengers. Just use Supervalu this will be the best place to do drop-offs and pick-ups to avoid the traffic restrictions.
• If you must drive, your options are:
  • You will not be allowed to park in nearby estates or roads. Please do not attempt to take “shortcuts” through residential estates. Keep to the main roads.
  • If you park anywhere within half an hour walk of Marlay Park, expect around 2 hours of traffic congestion when leaving the concert. The roads get closed for around 2 hours after the concert to allow for the safety of crowds exiting the concert.
  • For accessible car parking, please contact [email protected]
  • Limited car parking available next to the venue at €25 per car. If you park here, you’ll likely be affected by the road closures in place on roads adjacent to the venue. You must pre-book here well in advance. If you’re driving, follow the yellow signs directing you where to go, not your SatNav once you get off the M50.
  • St Colmcille’s Community School offer parking in their car park, 25 minutes walk away for €10. No need to book.
  • Dundrum Town Centre, Ireland’s largest car park, is 30 minutes walk away and charges €3.30 flat fee for parking after 6pm. There will also be a Park&Ride shuttle from there. Tickets pre-bookable here.

Some other practical advice:

• Don’t arrive early to queue at the gate. You’ll just get moved on. Last year, people arrived early to queue and it had a knock-on effect throughout the day as people started queuing unnecessarily and the roads had to be closed.
• Once you leave Marlay Park, there are toilets at a few locations outside the venue including on Ballinteer Avenue and Stonemason’s Way.
• The last Luas towards town goes through Dundrum at 00:25 and the last Luas southbound towards Cherrywood goes at 00:56. The gigs are meant to end at 11pm at the latest.

Here are the details published by MCD:

I will add further detail here once I get any.