It Takes A Village festival: everything you need to know

Tickets, how to get there, and the full line-up and stage times for the first festival of the season

Louise Bruton

Thu Apr 12 2018 - 12:00

It Takes a Village kicks off this season of festivals – but with a twist. A good twist: the venue is the Trobolgan holiday village in Co Cork, a place no doubt of summer thrills for many and memories of first scars and kisses and fighting with siblings as kids. This new three-day festival has Andrew Weatherall, Young Fathers and Martin Hayes & Steve Cooney as headliners, with Irish acts Talos, Saint Sister, Seamus Fogarty, Le Boom and many, many others there to entertain.

In another twist, it’s a festival with absolutely no camping – a weekend ticket guarantees that you have an actual bed under an actual roof in one of the holiday homes.

Taking place on the 121-acre site and with an expected capacity of 800 residents, there’s a heavy emphasis on daytime activities such as 5-a-side soccer, zip-lining and archery – turning this festival into a proper Hi-De-Hi. Plus, bad weather won’t be an issue as every stage is indoors and there’s a fully heated swimming pool – so don’t forget your togs.

It Takes a Village is placing the nostalgic elements of childhood holidays alongside the best parts – the craic, the silliness and the great music – of an Irish festival, resulting in something entirely new. We may have something great on our hands.

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Are tickets still available?
Residential, camper van and Sunday day tickets are still available. If you are booking a house, It Takes A Village operates a similar booking system to AirBnB, so one person has to act as the lead booker, who will be charged the full cost of the accommodation – so pick your housemates carefully if you don't want to be saddled with the bill. The houses sleep between one and nine people and costs range from €285 to €2,115. The remaining camper van tickets for two or four people cost €400 or €800. Sunday day tickets cost €50. These accommodation-based tickets will be available to buy up until Friday, April 13th at 6pm.

What's the accommodation situation?
We'll say it again – there is absolutely no camping, but a bed awaits to rest your head after a long day of dancing, archery or whatever you're having. There are 172 houses on site and 35 camper van spots.

Each house is equipped with bed linen, blankets, sheets, pillows and your standard house and kitchen items but you will need to bring your own towels. Once more with feeling and in caps lock: YOU WILL NEED TO BRING TOWELS.

What if we're Sunday day trippers?
There is a bus running from Patrick's Quay in Cork city to Trabolgan and back. It is €7 each way. Patrick's Quay to Trabolgan times are: 10am and noon. Trabolgan to Patrick's Quay times are: 10:30pm and 1:30am. You can book your spot on the bus here.

And tell us, can we bring our own food and booze?
You can! You can stock up with your own food and drink and cook up a storm in your own house but no food or drink can be brought into the main area. There will be a number of food stalls, coffee docks and bars open across the weekend and there's an on-site ATM and a general shop for any bits that you may need.

Which acts should we definitely, 100 per cent see?

Friday: check out Lankum (7pm) and Cork man Eoin French's act Talos (10pm).

Saturday: after you've dried off from Nialler9's pool party DJ set (1.30pm), go see Super Silly (6.45pm), Young Fathers (11pm) and Le Boom (12.20am).

Sunday: Saint Sister (4.50pm), Shookrah (6pm) and Seamus Fogarty (8pm).

What else can we do there?
Well, there's the Feel Good Lost 5-a-side soccer tournament on Saturday at noon, a swimming pool with a fully functioning wave machine, a par-three golf course – with a four-ball golf scramble at noon on Sunday – go-karting, an arcade, bowling, zip line, talks and secret gigs a plenty. Blindboy from the Rubberbandits will be recording a podcast on Sunday and for full disclosure, I will be sitting down with Aoife McElwain, the author of Slow at Work and Irish Times contributor, on Saturday where we try to right the wrongs of the world at Talkfix.

What time does it kick off at?
Check in is from 2pm on Friday. To check in to the festival, all you need to do is stop at the first security check on the Trabolgan driveway and they will sort you out. Check out is no later than 10am on Monday.

How do I get there?
Trabolgan is located near the village of Whitegate, east Cork

From Cork: take the N25 towards Waterford and once you hit the roundabout past Midleton take the second exit for Whitegate-Ballycotton. Continue straight for 16km through Whitegate village.

From Dublin: take the M7/M8 to Cork. At the Dunkettle Roundabout take the first exit for N25 towards Waterford. Once you hit the roundabout past Midleton take the second exit for Whitegate-Ballycotton. Continue straight for 16km through Whitegate village.

From Waterford: take the N25 for Cork and once you hit the roundabout before Midleton take the first exit for Whitegate-Ballycotton. Continue straight for 16km through Whitegate village and you will arrive.

What access facilities have they got?
There are wheelchair accessible homes available and there will be access facilities located in each of the main venues. Drop the festival organisers a line on ittakesavillagefestival@gmail.com with any access queries.

What about the weather?
There's due to be a little bit of rain this weekend but all of the venues in Trabolgan are indoors, including the swimming pool is heated and, lucky for us, Trabolgan have just spent installed a brand new glass canopy which covers the entire central area. This is the first festival where rain or mud will not be an issue, so you can actually wear your nice clothes.

The Line-up: what’s on where

FRIDAY

The Cove (Main Stage)

19:00 Lankum
20:15 The Jimmy Cake
22:00 Talos
23:30 The Altered Hours
00:30 Andrew Weatherall
02:00 - Shit Robot
03:30 - Close

Cotters (Bar Stage)

14:00 Jim X Comet
17:00 Stevie G
19:30 Fixity
20:30 Donal Dineen
22:15 Bitch Falcon
23:00 Nialler9
00:30 Bon Voyage
01:15 Arveene
02:30 Close

SATURDAY

Swimming Pool

11:00 Disco é Cultura
13.30 Nialler9

The Cove

13:00 Roger Doyle & Kevin Barry
14:10 Lilla Vargen
14.50 Landless
15:50 Slow Moving Clouds
16:45 Ye Vagabonds
19:30 Brian Deady
21:15 Fujiya & Miyagi
23:00 Young Fathers
00:15 John Daly
01:15 Fish Go Deep
03:30 Close

Cotters

13:00 John Blek
14.00 Anna Mieke
15:15 Crevice (40 mins)
16:30 Oh Pep!
17:15 Jus Me & Spekulativ Fiktion
18:45 Super Silly
20:20 Strength Nia
21:40 Ryan vail
22:40 Donal Dineen & DJ scope
00:20 Le Boom
01:20 Sim Simma
03:00 Close

Central Area Stage

19:40 Bad Bones
22:00 Bantum

Sally O’Hara’s (Restaurant)

10:00 Breakfast with The Inkspots
12:00 This is Ireland with Cormac Lally & Julie Goo
13:00 Cork Loves Music
14:00 Ringo Music Bingo with Ronan Leonard
14:45 Talkfix - Aoife McElwain speaks to Louise Bruton
15:30 Under the Hammers with Stan Notte, Ophelia, David Jackson, Julie Goo & Cormac Lally
17:20 Kevin Barry (30 mins reading)
18:50 Close

SUNDAY

Swimming Pool