Marlay Park Concerts 2024

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, 2024, there will be 6 Marlay Park concerts, (same number as 2022 & 2023). A number of changes were 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. I have asked that the council officials, the event promoters build on improvements from previous years.

One improvement on previous years is that all but one of the concerts are on the weekends.

Date	Gates open	Concert
Saturday 22nd June	4pm	Pearl Jam
Thursday 27th June	4pm	Green Day
Saturday 29th & 30th June	1.30pm	Longitude Festival
Friday 5th July	4pm	Hozier
Saturday 6th July	4pm	Kings of Leon

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 last from 10th June to 12th July (estimated)
Weekend markets	For June and July, the markets will likely be up beside the College Road car park (awaiting confirmation of this). Markets closed on days of weekend gigs.
Miniature Railway	The Marlay Miniature Railway will be closed (dates TBC)
Paths in the park	The paths near Grange Road will close on concert days. The rest of the paths will be open up until 4pm. There will be maps in the park showing which paths.
Grange Road car park	Reduced car parking capacity from 10th June to 12th 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 4pm/6pm (awaiting confirmation) 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.

New in 2024: Traffic management in Woodpark, Ballinteer

Last year, the new traffic management plan had a really negative effect on the Woodpark estate in Ballinteer. Traffic was backing up through the estate for hours after midnight on nights of the concert, with noise, anti-social behaviour and a safety risk as emergency services were not able to access this estate with over 500 homes.

This year, I am happy to confirm that the traffic management I secured for the estate in 2023 will be in place for all 6 Marlay Park concerts for 2024. This will also be the first year that Woodpark receive the same leaflet drop about the concerts that other estates in Ballinteer have received in previous years.

There will be parking permits distributed to every home in Woodpark and Traffic Management Operatives will ensure that only residents/commercial drivers can gain access to the estate before, during and after concerts.

I did ask for the same measures for Ballinteer Court but unfortunately I have been told it’s infeasible due to the presence of the businesses at the entrance of Ballinteer Court who would still need their car park access.

Pine Valley/Grange Road

I have asked that residents of Pine Valley & Grange Road have access to their homes limited to as narrow a window as possible.

Silverton, Harold’s Grange Road

I raised issues around Silverton and this is the response I received from DLR:

“There are no stewards allocated to Silverton Estate. There are, however, security personnel positioned at various points along Harolds Grange Road and they are on duty until the end of each event day. While there are no security personnel specifically allocated to Silverton, there are a combination of static and roaming positions in close proximity. A barrier is installed at this location. We have included notes in the security position briefings to monitor the entrance to Silverton for vehicles and to move attendees on at the end of the night. If the residents have any issues; anti-social, litter etc please contact the Residents’ Hotline when it happens and we can assist. There are mobile vehicles responses dedicated to that area, as well as our own off site team on bikes.”

Grangefield/Kingston

I raised issues around incidents at Grangefield and Kingston at last year’s concerts and this is the response I received from DLR:

There are stewarding positions at the entrance to both Grangefield and Kingston Estate. Residents will be once again be provided with details for the Residents Hotline and are encouraged to report any issues such as noise levels, anti-social behaviour and litter. I can confirm that no calls were registered by residents of Grangefield or Kingston Estate on any matter in 2023.

Other Marlay Park Concerts 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 and Go Ahead will publish diversions on their websites closer to the time. I’ve given feedback that they should do this sooner rather than later and that communications should be clearer than last year.
• In previous years there were 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.
• I wrote to the NTA in April asking for more buses, more Luases and better communication:

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.

Noise

I raised Noise Management as an ongoing issue that residents, especially in Pine Valley, have raised with me. Here is the response I received from DLR:

“Noise levels are measured throughout the day of each event.  Monitoring is carried in the 3 areas which are deemed to be the most directly exposed to concert noise being:

1. Grange Wood
2. Heather Lawn
3. Pine Valley

Monitoring will be carried out as per the licensing conditions by the lead consultant from ICAN.  In 2023, ICAN reported no breaches of the licensing conditions.

Spot checks will also be carried out by the Environmental Health Office to ensure compliance with the licensing conditions.  In 2023 no breaches were recorded and results were largely consistent with those reported by ICAN’s consultants.”

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

Note: some of the information below is from 2023 concerts and some is updated. I will update more as we get closer the concerts and more new details come out.

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 were provided at the corner of Stonemason’s Way and Broadford Road following my requests and I have been assured that there will be more bike parking options available again this year. There is supervised bike parking this year in the College Road car park, but it’s quite awkward to access by bike.
  • 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.
  • 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 (all of these available in original quality here):

I will add further detail here once I get any.