We started the festival season early this year by providing a service at the Otherside St. Patrick's Day event at Rock Farm, Slane, Co. Meath.
Having worked with the organisers Bedlam Events in the past for their Halloween Day of the Dead events, we already had a great relationship and had a good idea of the demographic of the crowd.
We were well-resourced with a team of 18 volunteers for the day. The service was quiet for the first couple of hours, but we used the time to meet people on the way in. From 6pm the service was busy. The busiest hours were between 8pm-9pm when 12 guests came through the doors. The other hours there was a steady flow through the service until the site cleared.
At peak a head count around 9pm revealed 15 guests in PsyCare with both tents in full. The methods of arrival showed that the majority (13 guests) were found and brought to the service by PsyCare Staff, medics referred 7 guests to us, security brought 7, 6 brought themselves and friends brought 8 for the total of 41 guests across the whole event.
We would like to extend our sincere thanks and admiration to everyone that we worked with directly or indirectly throughout the event. Otherside was one of the most supportive festivals we have worked at to date. Thanks for believing in the need for a service such as PsyCare. Interaction with other services on-site was extremely positive. Medics, security and Event Control were a pleasure to deal with and communication was great between ourselves and all parties.