The first ever UberFest was held in Malahide over the weekend of the 24th – 26th May 2013. This was a concept that Fingal County Council came up with and brought us on board to help them with. They identified a space in the grounds of Malahide Castle, which hadn’t previously been used for outdoor events, but that they felt would work.
They were right. We turned the area into a lovely little festival site. There was very little that wasn’t perfect from the point of view of site design. We did a manageable capacity of 3000 for each of the gigs, knowing there is scope to do significantly more safely in there in the future.
Fingal did a great job on the programming for the concerts too, appealing to a range of audiences with the range of acts they put on. The festival was very well received by the community and has great potential to develop year on year.
We’re looking forward to working on more events in the space between now and next year’s UberFest too.
We love that we were involved in this one from the absolute beginning. It allowed us to make sure that the right decisions were made and that the event had its best chance at being successful and developing in the future. It’s also a great feeling to be involved in something new and positive in a community like Malahide, especially when it’s received so well and has such a strong family fun element to it.
The fact that this was a green-field site which hadn’t been used before was a challenge in itself. There were a huge number of decisions to be made in relation to site design and a lot of factors impacting on those decisions. It’s always challenging in that situation, but it was a challenge we always enjoy.
"The UberFest in Malahide was Fingal County Council’s first large scale outdoor event on the site at Bridgefield in Malahide. We needed to run the weekend of events well so as to show that it could be done properly in there and that people would enjoy the space.
We brought Cuckoo in to make sure we achieved that goal. The weekend was a great success. The weather helped! Cuckoo were there early til late every day making sure it was all working as designed. They’re a dedicated bunch."