Music festivals and children: ‘The kids were still going strong at 11pm. I'm on anti-inflammatories'

Irish Times

09-07-2025

I have a friend who says when it comes to music festivals and her children, there's a Venn diagram. 'I could never be that parent,' she says. 'The Venn diagram would show us at a festival; them at a festival, but a big empty overlap in the middle: never us and them at a festival together.'
This makes total sense. Music festivals are loud and crowded, there's camping, mud, rain, sun, booze, broken sleep, queuing, expensive food and increasingly unspeakable toilets – why on earth would you bring your kids?
Music festivals are better when you're not responsible for someone else's fun. Go with friends, and you don't need to accompany them to the toilet, or praise their endeavours therein. You don't have to pack snacks, manage naps or (generally) put up with their whingeing.
Surely the draw of a three-day music festival is having no responsibilities? Apart from the big acts, that's kind of what you pay for – admission to this liminal space where for three whole days, you can live without routines, lose track of time, step out of roles and unyoke from responsibilities. You get to drink pints in fields with your mates; have long, uninterrupted conversations; roam between the stages and your biggest decision is who to see next.
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Yes, kids at music festivals are all wrong – except at Kaleidoscope, that is, a family music festival, where the kids are all right.
Kaleidoscope. Photograph: Anamaria Meiu
This festival, staged at Russborough House in Co Wicklow last weekend, has been going since 2019. Billed variously as 'Ireland's favourite family music festival' and 'Ireland's favourite family music camping festival', it's fun and a bit of a mash-up. Just don't expect Glastonbury or Electric Picnic.
This looks like a music festival, it sounds like one, and it certainly smells like one, but this time, you're carrying nappy sacks and Calpol. The vibe is relaxed and family-oriented – but hip and edgy it's not. If you were a hardcore music festival aficionado before kids and are still chasing the dragon, you might just hate it. Others here, less haunted by their past, will probably have a better time. Maybe they've never been to a music festival before.
At Kaleidoscope they can cosplay with their kids going to one. For others Kaleidoscope is a straight-up camping festival. They've come with 15 other families. Their friends are in neighbouring tents, and their neighbours are in neighbouring tents, and they will spend two-thirds of their time in the campsite, cooking. They will make a night-time foray to the main stage for the headliner, convening with their tween and teen kids who have had the glorious freedom to roam all day.
I can see by my nine-year-old's face that there's something pretty new and thrilling about this for him too
My husband and I are fresh from Glastonbury. And by that I mean, we ordered takeaways and watched the highlights on BBC from the sofa, as we've done every year since having kids. We used to go to music festivals, but that life seems far in the past, and far in the future.
Kaleidoscope is our first festival since having children, and our first time camping with them. Arriving at the festival site at about 6pm on a rainy Friday, we're grateful for the comfort of a pre-pitched Yippee boutique glamping tent, complete with air mattresses and hotel bedding. This is cheating. We can just drop our stuff and head into the main stage.
Hermitage Green plays soon, but eight and nine year-olds only have eyes for the fun fair, which dominates the main field – we're suckered in by 'the world's biggest bouncy castle'. It's €5 per child for a 10-minute bounce. That's €1 a minute for two kids. You'll get no financial lessons here, mind – they thoroughly enjoyed themselves and we returned three times over the weekend.
The Zozimus tent bings proper festival nostalgia. It's a big, dark tent with a glitter ball, banging tunes, dry ice – and double buggies too. There's no more beautiful vision of Irish motherhood than a mammy here getting her freak on to Daft Punk. Twin toddlers in snug onesies stare up from their buggy, agog at what's come over her. Dad looks on admiringly, sipping a beer.
There's joy right there, and triumph too among parents – hey, we're at a music festival, and for these minutes at least, no one is crying, no one needs anything. That's enough some days. You'll find no surge towards the main stage here, no mosh, but there's dancing and communing over great music.
Kaleidoscope 2025. Photograph: Anamaria Meiu
I can see by my nine-year-old's face that there's something pretty new and thrilling about this for him too. The silent disco with the kids is also a hoot. It's wet outside and there's a gale blowing, so we head back to the camp site via the 'Ickle Big Top' – the Minecraft movie is playing to a packed house of children in coats sitting on mats and in camp chairs. It's like the nation's sittingroom where mostly mothers dart in and out at intervals to check their offspring, whisper-shouting: 'Are you warm enough?' 'Do you need a pee?' 'Do you want your water?'
Returning to their camp chairs, which mark the tent's exits, they sit in the drizzle drinking beer, chatting with other parents to the strains of Steve's Lava Chicken.
It's 5am, and I'm woken by a man with a low, gravelly voice: 'Do you need a wee-wee?' This voice is not my husband's. The man's entreaty is gentle, but has a slightly pleading insistence to it. 'Do you need a wee-wee?' he repeats. Who is this man? Why is he in my tent, why is he asking if I need a wee-wee?
'Daddy's going, and Seán is going, do you want to come with us?' This is coming from the tent next door, I realise. With a sheet of canvas between us, I'm reminded that when camping, a neighbour's plight becomes yours.
Whatever about his daughter, next-door-daddy has done a number on me: do I need a wee-wee? A 'just-in-case' one? And so the day begins. Early. There are clean, hot showers in the glamping area too, and a Pamper Tent, complete with mirrors, hair dryers and hair straighteners.
At a family festival, these go unused and unplugged. Instead, there are dads sitting sentinel as teens' devices charge, mums are boiling kettles for their daughters' hot water bottles. I wouldn't be surprised to see a chicken cooking in an air fryer here.
The Hunt kids try out Porridge Party at Kaleidoscope
There's about 20,000 weekend attendees at the festival, organisers say, 1,000 of them are in campervans. Some pitch tents as big as bungalows. It's a damp and cool morning, so we make for a 10am Porridge Party to warm us up.
Is free porridge a problem for the Portaloos? By Saturday night, the system is under strain, but that's every music festival ever. After porridge, I join a 21-person queue for a €4 cappuccino, chatting to Clare Corrigan from nearby Donard. She and a gang of mums and their kids have come every year since 2019. 'It's all the mums of my daughters' friends,' says Corrigan. 'We get the presale tickets, it's good value.'
The mums arrive on Friday morning to pitch their six tents around a central gazebo, then they go home and pick up the kids, she says. 'The dads come after with the beer.' There are 16 in the group, with children aged six to 16. 'They are up there eating pancakes now, happy out,' she says.
'Yesterday, before we went down to the main stage, they all got in one tent and were braiding each other's hair, putting on face paint and glitter, that's what they love doing.' It gets easier as the kids get older, she says. The kids have more freedom to roam and can help with camping logistics. 'It's safe for kids. That's the whole thing.'
A bearded man in shorts with a tattooed calf limps past in the drizzle. He's walking from the Portaloos back to the campsite, a crutch in one hand, a pink plastic potty in the other. Conor Roe from Artane is here with his wife, Laura, and three kids, Isaac (8), Kayla (6) and Lilly (3). It's their first time at Kaleidoscope.
'We're camping with friends – they have all been here several times and they convinced us this year to come,' says Conor. This dad is in pain. 'I woke up on Wednesday and it looks like I have a bulging disk. I have awful pain down through my left leg, but I couldn't not go, the kids were so hyped up. It's their first time.'
They saw Ocean Colour Scene on the main stage last night. 'The kids were going strong until 11pm,' he says. 'I'm getting through this on painkillers and anti-inflammatories.' There are examples of epic parenting everywhere. Parents are doing it for the kids. And to be fair to them, the kids are doing this for the parents too.
Spend your day at the funfair here and the cost can rack up, but the Wonderland area of the festival has lots of free activities, a respite from sensory overload. We spend an hour at the excellent Fighting Words creative writing workshop where a solid crew of about 40 kids is expertly facilitated. Heads down, pencils twitching with ideas, they are in total flow.
Joanne Hunt and her family at Kaleidoscope
Throughout the weekend there are experiments with Mark, the Science Guy, a chance to pilot robots with Munster Technological University and a reptile rendezvous. The Sports Field is a big draw for our kids, too, where on a pitch edged with straw bales, a rolling football match runs all weekend. Like a kind of neighbourhood game from the 1980s, players aged four to 14 drop in and out all day. Old-school fun.
Nearby, School Fitness Ireland holds hurdles, boxing and dance competitions. For the sack race, the dads don't need to be asked twice to compete. Anyone for the mums' sack race? Anyone who has given birth will know that this can be a risky business. A urogynaecologist could have cleaned up here.
Dads taking part in the sack race
By the time Jerry Fish is on the main stage, with circus performers adding visual spectacle for the kids, the sun is shining and warm. Before Texas headlines later, we head to the campsite for some downtime. The kids loll in the tent with the iPad and sort out football cards. For the sleep-loving, schedule-abiding parents we have become, this return to festivals is going pretty well. Sitting outside on camp chairs in the warm evening sun with a ham, cheese and crisp sandwich and a beer, and the Riptide Movement playing in the distance, it's all working out.
We head back to the main stage for the Saturday headliner. Beside us, Des McCarthy from Bandon deftly unpacks miniature camping chairs for his children, Evie (5) and Ruairí (3), and serves them a takeaway pizza. With the kids occupied, he starts assembling chairs with complicated telescopic parts for himself and wife, Danielle, who is getting more food.
Indeed, everywhere you look, there are women getting things, holding things – wipes, water, sun cream, snacks, nappies, babies, beer. The men are doing it too. With the reflexes of a cat, or a multitasking parent at a music festival, McCarthy dives to rescue the pizza box, just before it slides off Evie's knees on to the grass. Sharleen Spiteri delivers her stonking set, to a chilled-out audience on picnic blankets and camping chairs.
'It's our first time coming, it's very good. It's brilliant,' says McCarthy. 'The kids love it. I think there is enough going on that has their interest.' He hasn't been to a music festival since becoming a dad. 'Just now, we are beginning to venture out in the world again,' he says. 'It's a bit scary, but it's good.'
Family-friendly festivals
Fancy a family-friendly music festival? Some this year are already sold-out, but there's always next year, and your kids will be a year older.
Forest Fest: Franz Ferdinand. Photograph: Oli Scarff/AFP via Getty
Forest Fest
Emo Village, Co Laois
July 25th-27th, tickets available
Who's playing
Franz Ferdinard, Manic Street Preachers, Travis
Why go?
Music and arts festival, intimate setting, craft beers. Kids circus skills workshop and Viking house excavation. Kids under 12 go free, single parent family pricing options.
All Together Now: Fontaines DC. Photograph: Tom Honan
All Together Now
Curraghmore Estate, Waterford
Dates
Thursday 31 July – Sunday 3
August
Who's playing
Nelly Furtado, Fontaines DC, CMAT, London Grammar
Why go?
Boutique festival fusing music, art and food in a glorious setting.
Two children aged 12 and under attend free of charge, accompanied by a parent with a family ticket.
Dedicated family campsite.
Tickets for 2026 on sale now.
Chappell Roan
Electric Picnic
Stradbally Hall, Laois
Friday 29th-Sunday 31st, August SOLD OUT
Who's playing
: Kings of Leon, Hozier, Sam Fender, Fatboy Slim, Chappell Roan
Why go?
Ireland's biggest and one of the longest running music festivals. Dedicated family campsite for children under 12, limited to two children per adult.
Tickets for 2026 available spring 2026
Night and Day Festival. Photograph: Marek Petrovic
Night and Day Festival
Lough Key Forest Park
May 29th-June 1st, 2026, tickets on sale now
Why go?
Dance workshops, circus skills, foraging for kids. Children 14 and under go free when accompanied by a ticket-holding guardian.