If you absolutely have to con your way into a music festival, do it like this

Joe Harrington

A story of creativity and big balls.

If you’ve ever missed out on tickets for a great gig or music festival, then you’ll love this tale about a few Irish guys in Australia.

Portmarnock men Paddy Egan and Eric Stears had their dream of seeing Tame Impala at Laneway Festival in Sydney dashed after the tickets sold out just days before the event.

They didn’t give up and used some serious ingenuity to try and get there. Here’s Eric’s version of events and the photos that tell the full story.

The Idea

“We listened to Tame Impala A LOT all through our travels around Asia so had been thinking about going to Laneway Festival for a while.

“Our classic “It’ll be grand” Irish attitude left us about to kick ourselves because the festival sold out.

“We didn’t panic, we had a few options:

Hop over the fence – not arsed
Say we lost our tickets – they’ve seen it before
Try to bribe the security – too risky”

The Plan

“So, our ‘It’ll be graaaaand’ candle was still burning, so we decided on making our way in as workers. We thought maintenance was the easiest; with a $10 high-vis, some rubber gloves and few plastic bags from K-Mart.

“Oh, and a few double laminated, watermarked, barcoded fake passes.”

The Attempt

“On the day, we got dropped off about 400 metres from the gates so we could have a look for our best entrance. Once that was found it was sussed, so we hid behind a tree while doing the wardrobe change.

“Then the entrance to the artist entry gate where we walked safely past the first security guard with a casual nod, but next up was the Robocop at the main gate.

“All it took was as a “just meeting our supervisor at stage two mate…” He took about five seconds, looked us up and down “in you go lads.” Yes.”

The Result

“We didn’t break our act immediately, and as we got in started filling the rubbish bags to play the part. Straight into the toilets, off with the t-shirts, binned the gloves and out we came. We did it!!

“The festival was amazing; Glass Animals played a stormer and, of course, Tame impala made the night.”

Here’s the story in photos.

Well played.

Cheers to Eric Stears for sending this our way. If you have something you would like to share with us, send it to [email protected] or hit us up on Facebook or Twitter.