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Oxegen
Location(s)	Punchestown Racecourse, County Kildare, Ireland
Years active	2004 - present
Founded by
Date(s)	July 11 - 13
Genre(s)	Rock
Website	www.OXEGEN.ie

Oxegen is an annual music festival, held since 2004, sponsored by Heineken International. It was previously called Witnness, which ran from the year 2000 and was sponsored by Guinness. Oxegen was originally a two-day festival but for 2008 will be expanded to three days. It takes place at the Punchestown Racecourse in County Kildare, Republic of Ireland and has an average attendance of around 80,000 a day, with around half of these camping on site for the duration, and the rest travelling to the site each day. The festival is promoted by MCD.

While Oxegen has not yet reached the iconic status of Glastonbury, it still manages to attract a large quantity of high profile acts each year. Generally, the festival's line-up is identical to that of T in the Park, which runs on the same weekend, but in Scotland. Many acts play Oxegen on the day that they're not playing TitP.

As well as six stages of music, there are two large areas for camping which are subdivided by number. Stalls and shops are also provided, as well as toilet and shower areas (from 2006). The toilet facilities have been criticised by some as not being adequate for the large number of people at the festival.^{[citation needed]} There is also a funfair adjacent to the arena, featuring a big wheel and other rides, such as the "Magic Carpet", the "Big Drop", and the roller coaster.

Glass bottles are banned from the festival site and items such as bottle corks are banned from the concert area.

Contents 1 2004 Festival 2 2005 Festival 2.1 2005 Line-up 3 2006 Festival 3.1 2006 Line-up 4 2007 Festival 4.1 2007 Line-up 5 2008 Festival 6 References 7 External links

The Cure, The Darkness, The Strokes, Kings of Leon, PJ Harvey, The Divine Comedy, The Libertines, Franz Ferdinand, Scissor Sisters, Muse, Faithless, Massive Attack, Basement Jaxx, Chemical Brothers, Belle & Sebastian, Snow Patrol, Orbital, The Complete Stone Roses and Cartoon are some of the bands that played at the 2004 festival. The Killers and Razorlight were among the bands headlining the New Band Stage. Tickets sold out a week before the event. David Bowie was due to headline the festival but had to pull out due to illness.

For main article, see Oxegen 2005.

Green Day, Foo Fighters, New Order, James Brown, The Prodigy, Queens of the Stone Age, The Frames, Keane, Feeder, The Killers, Bloc Party, Kaiser Chiefs, Kasabian, The Bravery, Nine Black Alps, The Departure, Razorlight, LCD Soundsystem, Echo & the Bunnymen, The La's, The Revs and Snoop Dogg are some of the acts that performed on Saturday, July 9 and Sunday, July 10.

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The main acts that played the festival:[1]

Saturday July 9 Oxegen Stage Green Day The Frames Queens of the Stone Age Snoop Dogg Razorlight Kaiser Chiefs The Saw Doctors Björn Again The Stands

Sunday July 10 Oxegen Stage Foo Fighters Keane Kaiser Chiefs The Killers The Streets Audioslave Feeder The Beautiful South The Revs

For main article, see Oxegen 2006.

A limited number of tickets for the 2006 festival went on sale a week after the 2005 festival on Friday, July 15. On February 20 the first acts (The Who, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Strokes, Arctic Monkeys, Franz Ferdinand, Kaiser Chiefs) were officially announced.

Tickets went on general sale on Friday March 3 at 8 a.m. Weekend camping tickets were priced at €160. This allocation of tickets was completely sold out within 48 hours. The festival itself encountered bad weather which eclipsed previous records. The weather did improve on Sunday afternoon with sunny skies and a cool, gentle breeze ensuring a decrease in wet festival-goers.

Moments that will be remembered from the festival include The Who's first live performance in Ireland for 35 years, the sound problems encountered by HARD-Fi in particular due to the weather conditions on the Saturday, the Arctic Monkeys' arrival in Ireland, the Kooks performance on the NME Stage which was too small for them. When Franz Ferdinand had completed their set on the Sunday evening, the action on the large screens by the Main Stage switched to BBC One where the World Cup Final had gone down to a penalty shootout. This was followed by the Red Hot Chili Peppers who performed in Ireland for the fourth time in five summers. On the previous night (Saturday), James Brown had headlined the Main Stage in what turned out to be his last ever live performance at a festival in Ireland.

Security arrangements were however criticised as being poor by some sections of the media. The camp-site was not free from trouble in 2006 troublesome, with some reports of tent-burning and an alleged stabbing on the Sunday night/Monday morning of the festival. In the Green Room there was seen to be a considerable leak allowing rain into the enclosed tent.

There were 225 arrests for drugs (with 13 charged for possession with intent to supply), one alleged rape, ^[1] and the Evening Herald reported that around 250 people were treated for alcohol and drug abuse. Fears were raised of a bad batch of the drug ecstasy when 40 people were sent to the Naas general hospital, but no evidence of such a batch was found.

A number of media outlets were threatened with legal action on their coverage of the Oxegen festival in its aftermath. These included the Irish Independent and boards.ie, where all discussion of MCD events and venues was banned.

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The main acts that played the festival:

Saturday July 8 Main Stage James Brown The Who The Strokes Arctic Monkeys HARD-Fi Magic Numbers Damien Dempsey Republic of Loose Sandi Thom The Marshals

Sunday July 9 Main Stage Red Hot Chili Peppers Franz Ferdinand Kaiser Chiefs Placebo Bell X1 Manu Chao Maxïmo Park Director Sharon Shannon

Oxegen 2006 Logo

For main article, see Oxegen 07.

Oxegen 07 took place at Punchestown Racecourse on Saturday July 7 and Sunday July 8. The Live Earth concerts occurred around the world on the same day as the Saturday of Oxegen 2007. Tickets went on general sale at 8 a.m. on Friday March 2 2007. These sold out in under seventy minutes. The price of a day ticket rose to €96.50, a weekend ticket cost €177.50, whilst the price of a weekend ticket plus camping this year rose to €197.50 (roughly the same price as a three-day Electric Picnic ticket), as compared to €160 in 2006. As in 2006, it was possible to purchase four weekend camping tickets together and receive a free car parking ticket. As with previous years, a number of pre-sale tickets went on sale on November 10 2006 at the same price as the 2006 festival.

Bands that played the festival included Muse, Snow Patrol, Arcade Fire, Scissor Sisters, Razorlight, The Killers, Bloc Party, The Kooks, Kings of Leon, Daft Punk, Interpol, My Chemical Romance, Queens of the Stone Age, The Fratellis, The View and The Bravery. Brian Wilson, Avril Lavigne, Mika and Sinéad O'Connor also made appearances. Irish bands that played included The Blizzards, Director, Delorentos and Royseven. Amy Winehouse pulled out at the last minute ^[2] whilst The Immediate were officially announced only to split up on the same day. ^[3]

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The main acts that played the festival:[2]

Saturday July 7 Main Stage Muse Snow Patrol Scissor Sisters Kings of Leon The Fratellis The Goo Goo Dolls Avril Lavigne Director The View The Cribs Stage 2 Rodrigo y Gabriela Interpol Maxïmo Park Mika The Gossip Biffy Clyro The Twang The Pigeon Detectives Kharma 45 Frightened Rabbit

Oxegen 07 Logo Sunday July 8 Main Stage The Killers Razorlight Arcade Fire The Kooks Bloc Party James Morrison The Blizzards The Saw Doctors Stage 2 Daft Punk My Chemical Romance Amy Winehouse* Babyshambles CSS Gogol Bordello The Thrills Little Man Tate Dogs The Coronas

_{* denotes cancelled performance}

It has been confirmed on the official OXEGEN website (on November 21, 2007) that Oxegen 2008 will be a three-day affair, ^[4] taking place from Friday July 11 until Sunday July 13 at Punchestown Racecourse in Naas, County Kildare. On November 2, 2007, the official OXEGEN website offered fans the chance to vote for who they would like to see perform during the festival in return for entry into a prize draw for free weekend tickets to OXEGEN 08. Oxegen will take place over 3 days with €20 for a Thursday camping pass. Presale tickets will go on sale at 8 a.m. on Friday November 30 at a cost of €197.

On November 27 at 5 p.m, Kings of Leon became the first band to be announced to play Oxegen next summer. The band topped an online poll which asked festival-goers for their dream line-up and so the band were immediately asked and confirmed. Vocalist Caleb Followill said: "We love playing in Ireland, the fans are brilliant and we can't wait to play Oxegen 2008". ^[5]

The rest of the line-up will be announced in February.

• Official Oxegen Website
• MCD, Oxegen's Promoters
• Watch clips from Oxegen 2006
• Review of acts at 2006 festival by BBC
• RTÉ photos of Oxegen 2006
• Irish Sunday Mirror article - "We had to fend for ourselves in Oxegen mayhem"
• Irish Independent article - "How we feared for our lives at Oxegen" (free registration required)
• Comprehensive review of Oxegen 2005
• Irish Times article regarding the controversy - "Oxegen gets the wind knocked out of it"
• Sunday Times article on Boards.ie legal proceedings - "Denis Desmond's web war over Oxegen attacks"
• Indymedia review of 2006 festival and coverage of claims MCD 'buried' online criticism
• A discussion of MCD vs. Boards.ie on Thumped.com
• MCD threatens the Irish Independent and boards.ie
• An extensive summary of the situation as of August 20, by the Sunday Tribune (free registration required)

v • d • e Irish Music Events & Festivals
Bud Rising | Castlepalooza | Cois Fharraige | Creamfields | Day of Darkness | Download | Electric Picnic | Féile Heineken Green Energy | HiFi:Ireland | Indie-pendence | Live at the Marquee | Midlands Oxegen (previously Witnness) | Slane | Tennents ViTal | The Garden Party