I had the erm, pleasure, of being there, yes!
I'm sure people had it way worse than I did, but as much as I enjoyed the gig itself, I have to say, I'll never go back to Slane again- no matter who was playing.
I've read a lot of threads with people saying 'its a gig, suck it up, what do you expect' etc..but I have to say, the organisation was shocking.
I've been before, was prepared to queue for toilet/drinks/food, to walk for miles to/from buses, to see a few scobies about (particulary given the line-up) but this was something entirely different. I don't mind the scores of blokes lined up peeing on the side of the road (although I'm sure the land/homeowners around did!), again, part of the package and though the smashing of bottles all around the road was unsightly and unneccesary, it was all part the usual mess-fest of an outdoor concert. I do have to say that given the usual scummage of the portaloos, the toilets, even later in the day, were probably the cleanest I've seen at an outdoor gig (credit where credit is due and all that). The outdoor urinals for the blokes eased queue times, and dare I say it some of the mess?!?!
What bothered me the most was the 1hr20min squeeze up the forest path - it was extremely dangerous (this was cattle-mart at its very worst) and I was surprised to hear afterwards, of only one injury. Our tickets were scanned, but I've heard tons of stories of non-checking, resulting in what certainly looked to me like an over-capacity crowd.
The queuing at the bar is always inevitable, but this was ridiculous! The queues were horrendus, and not just cause you'd to wait over an hour for a beer, it was the pushing and shoving of the the punters, and the stewards ignoring it. The fact that they had to close one bar of two at a gig of that size is borderline riot incitement! That they were 'financially able' to reduce the price of a beer from €6 to €5 because they ran out of change shows the ridiculous markups attached to dregs of beer in a plastic cup. Surely, having more bars would've made more them money/caused less agro, even if they stuck to the seemingly Garda-enforced 2 drink limit.
I didn't get a Dublin bus - some of the stories were horrific, but I can't really comment. I had a not-quite-so bad experience on a private bus - despite leaving on the last note of the encore, the 6km walk (about 3k further than he said he'd be), followed by the long wait to move, followed by the gridlock meant that despite the concert finishing at 10.30, we didn't get home until 3.30 (and we live not 30km from the castle).
As I said, I heard worse than I saw - drug busts/fights/open drug taking/non-ticket checking/stranded in ditches etc... but that won't change my resolve to never throw money at the like again. A bit more organisation and it could've gone as smooth as previous years. You'll always get some horror stories, but I've never heard such an abundance of them!
Loved the music, loved the general atmosphere, would've been nice to chill out and enjoy the day with a beer but alas it wasn't quite to be. I'm just sorry that I didn't bring my own beer in - our bags weren't looked at, let alone searched!