A number of complaints have been made about long delays leaving car parks at the Electric Picnic festival in Stradbally, Co Laois.
A crowd of 75,000 people attended the music and arts event over the weekend, with festival goers reporting long queues and cars being left at a standstill this morning.
In a statement, organisers acknowledged the issues, attributing the delays to a breakdown on the N80 involving a caravan being towed by another vehicle.
"That caused a delay as towing services were dispatched and the site is expected to be cleared of traffic soon, all car parks and remaining traffic is now moving freely.
They added that "despite the reported issues, we have cleared the car parks 27 minutes ahead of last year".
The issues were aired on RTÉ's Liveline, with a number of callers complaining that there appeared to be a lack of staff coordinating the exit from the red car park.
One caller, Oisín, described a situation of "every man for themselves" and a lack of direction from stewards.
"We sat in the car park since 10.30am and only got out at 3pm. It was only luck that I had water and petrol in the car and some snacks.
"We only gained about 100 metres in the first few hours, and there were thousands of cars trying to get out onto the road".
Ellie O’Callaghan said she had paid for early entry to the festival, allowing her into the site on Thursday, and she thought this would give her an advantage for getting out, but this was not the case.
She described the traffic as at a standstill, with no sign of an exit.
"There’s no bathroom and people are stuck in cars. They are beeping horns constantly, and it’s beyond a joke at this point".
However another caller, Eoghan, said he left at 10am from the caravan and camper section, and the traffic management was superb.
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Meanwhile caller Aoife, who left later at 11.30am, said that she was sitting in her car in the car park for almost three hours before getting on to the road.
"I only saw one staff member in that time, and I was lost for a bit but I just followed the crowd.
"I know that tickets for next year are on sale again soon, but it would put me off going again. It felt like once the event was over, the organisers didn’t care".
Another festival-goer told RTÉ News that he got back to his car in the red car park shortly after 10.30am and didn't leave the car park until 2.45pm.
"It definitely sours what was a fairly good weekend," Evan Murphy Keogh said.
An Garda Síochána said that despite speculation, no traffic collision occurred.
In a statement the organisation said gardaí assisted with traffic management at the event this afternoon.
Posting on X, Electric Picnic released a statement at 3pm which said that there were delays of ten minutes at the red car park, but all other car parks had no delays.
"We are aware there have been delays in a small pocket of red car park A. Our car park teams have been worked hard to cleared the backlog and expect to have it fully cleared within the next ten minutes".
They also advised contacting a member of staff on site if assistance is required.
