Oxegen Festival

Oxegen was a music festival in Ireland, first held from 2004–2011 as a rock and pop festival and again in 2013 with dance and chart acts only. The event was regularly cited as Ireland's biggest music festival, and, by 2009, it was being cited as the greenest festival, being a 100% carbon neutral event in Ireland, although this claim is highly disputed as green-washing. It was previously called Witnness, which ran from 2000 and was sponsored by Guinness. The event is promoted by MCD and is sponsored by Heineken. Oxegen was originally a three-day festival, but from 2008 onwards, it was expanded to four days.

It took place at the Punchestown Racecourse in County Kildare, Ireland and has an average attendance of around 60,000 a day, with around 50,000 of these camping on site for the duration, and the rest travelling to the site each day. It takes place on the same weekend as T in the Park in Scotland and shares a very similar lineup each year, but Oxegen is generally regarded as Ireland's version of the Glastonbury Festival, with the 2008 festival sharing three of the same headliners as its English counterpart.

Oxegen has attracted significant attention from outside Ireland, with many of those attending travelling from overseas experiencing a "mass exodus" to the festival. Members of bands such as The Killers, Snow Patrol and R.E.M. have spoken positively of their experiences at the festival. Celebrities frequently attend, including models Helena Christensen (a regular attendant) and television personality Chris Pontius, actor Josh Hartnett, and Ronnie Wood of The Rolling Stones, who was pursued by "half the journalists in the country" and many of his own relatives for much of the 2008 festival. The event has also attracted some negative publicity, particularly following the 2006 festival. This is attributed to such factors as the age of admission (17) and easy access to alcohol.

Oxegen, for two consecutive years, was named as the Best European Festival in a poll which included festivals from France, Netherlands, Spain, United Kingdom and other countries, leading ''The Sunday Business Post''s Nicola Cooke to describe it as "one of the most successful music festivals in Ireland has". Leagues O'Toole has described it as an "enormously successful, award-winning, established brand ..aimed at a young audience out for a good time, a post-Leaving Cert rite of passage perfect for acts with big singalong tunes that sound great in the mud". Oxegen received a mention in the Colum McCann short story "Aisling".

In April 2014, organisers announced that the Oxegen festival would not be going ahead that year, citing a lack of suitable headline acts.

History

Oxegen first took place in 2004 over the second weekend in July. The Killers, who went on to headline the festival twice in 2007 and 2009, were one of the bands to appear at the first Oxegen. Dave Keuning, in an interview with ''Hot Press'' prior to the 2009 festival, described Oxegen as "a big deal because it's one of the first European festivals we played when we came over from Vegas in 2004. We only had one hit—" Mr. Brightside"—and were worried in case no one showed. But the tent was packed with people screaming out the words to songs we didn't think they knew. It was that night we thought, 'Hey, something's happening here!' Oxegen more so than Glastonbury even was the highlight of our summer."

The original festival, Witnness, sponsored by Guinness, took place during the start of August with notable headliners, including Oasis, The Foo Fighters and Green Day. In its second and third year, running changed its dates to the second weekend of July. In 2008 Oxegen became a three-day festival.

Rodrigo y Gabriela made their breakthrough after being asked by Damien Rice to perform with him at Oxegen 2004.

The Japanese Popstars formed after viewing several dance acts at Oxegen 2006.

R.E.M. members Michael Stipe and Peter Buck watched several shows from side stage at Oxegen 2007 before returning to headline the festival the following year. Stipe credits his 2007 visit with inspiring him to want to go on tour again, saying: "I saw all these great bands and the next day after the festival we went into the studio."

Muse, known for their spectacular light show and their reputation as one of the best live bands in the world, headlined Oxegen 2007. They returned to headline the mainstage on the Saturday night of the 2010 festival.

Battles played the biggest festival show of their career at that time in the Pet Sounds Arena during Oxegen 2008. The Prodigy played four new songs at Oxegen 2008. Also in 2008, Interpol were sent champagne by U2 as they arrived for rehearsals.

Chad Wolf of Carolina Liar described the band's performance at Oxegen 2009 as "an out-of-body experience".

Each Oxegen has been defined by the attention focused on its own weather, with ''The Belfast Telegraph'' referring to 2005 as "the sunny one", 2006 as "the torrentially rainy one", 2007 as "the muddy one" and 2008 as "the so-so one".

Facilities

As well as the current eight stages of music, there are three large areas for camping which are subdivided by number and the colours blue, red and green – which is the VIP campsite. The backstage and media areas are located in the middle of the site in the buildings normally used to watch the races. Stalls and shops are also provided for festival-goers, as well as toilet and shower areas for campers from 2006 onwards.

A Centra store was located in each campsite from 2007 onwards and An Post first appeared at the festival in 2008.
The toilet facilities, which had previously been criticised by some as not being adequate for the large number of people at the festival, were improved in recent years. There is also a funfair adjacent to the arena, featuring a big wheel and other rides, such as the "Magic Carpet", the "Big Drop", and the roller coaster. In 2008, an additional funfair was located in the blue campsite alongside other campsite entertainment such as a circus, silent disco and the Xbox Live Stage. Glass in any form is banned from the festival site and bottle corks, cans and umbrellas are banned from the concert arena.

52 miles of fencing are used across the site. 14 megawatts of power are used to energise Oxegen, with 28,000 miles of cable used to transfer this power. 25,000 litre water tankers are located around the site. Hats and cloaks are regularly seen, whilst wellies are also commonly worn by festival-goers.

The Dance Arena is a large shed previously used for ideal homes exhibitions.

2004 Festival

Oxegen 2004 took place at Punchestown Racecourse from 10 to 11 July. The Strokes, The Cure,
Basement Jaxx, The Darkness, Faithless, Kings of Leon, PJ Harvey, Wu-Tang Clan, The Libertines, Muse, Massive Attack, Keane, Franz Ferdinand, Chemical Brothers, Belle & Sebastian, Scissor Sisters, Elbow, Electric Six, Ocean Colour Scene, The Complete Stone Roses and Cartoon are some of the bands that played at the 2004 festival which took place over five stages. Orbital played their last ever Irish show at the festival, whilst The Black Eyed Peas performed in Ireland for the first time in over two years. The Killers, Republic of Loose and Razorlight were among the bands headlining the New Band Stage. Other Irish acts to appear included Ash, The Divine Comedy, Hothouse Flowers, The Saw Doctors, HAL, Snow Patrol, The Devlins

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