Alister Music

About

How these guides are made

Every guide here depends on a number — a last train, a curfew, a walk time. This page explains where those numbers come from, and what we do when we can't confirm one.

The short version

Alister Music is an independent site, run from Ireland, with no ownership, sponsorship or commercial relationship with any festival, venue, promoter or hotel.

It earns commission on accommodation and activity bookings made through links on these pages, at no extra cost to you. That never changes what we include or how we order it. It also sells its own merch.

Every timetable figure comes from the operator's own published timetable, is dated on the page, and is checked again each season.

Who writes this

Alister Music is written and checked by Maggie, a dancer and music enthusiast.

Every guide is built from primary sources: the transport operator's own timetable, the venue's and promoter's own pages, and official fare tables. Each one is named and dated on the page.

The rules we write to

Primary sources for anything that affects your night. Last trains come from the operator's own timetable, not a journey planner screenshot or another blog. Gate times, curfews and re-entry rules come from the event's own information. Every guide lists its sources at the bottom, with links.

Estimates are labelled as estimates. Price ranges are ranges. Distances we estimated rather than measured have a tilde (~). Where we couldn't confirm a hotel's reception hours, the table says "Ask first" rather than guessing.

When two sources disagree, we say so rather than choose one. The Eden Park guide gives the Sunday last train as a range, because two readings of the Auckland timetable gave two different times. The Lollapalooza Argentina guide gives both reported start times for the late train and explains that we couldn't find out which is right. A confident but wrong time could leave someone stranded.

And we go back and check. Timetables change each season, so every guide shows the date it was last checked.

We tell you things that don't earn us money. Pattaya doesn't sell out. Scarborough doesn't sell out. If you came to Wonderfruit for the late-night programme, a tent beats a hotel — and we earn nothing from a tent. A guide that always tells you to book now is just an advert.

How the site makes money

Some links on these pages are affiliate links: if you book through one, we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. Nobody pays to appear in a guide or to rank higher. We also sell our own merch.

What gets covered

Festivals and venues where you'll need to stay overnight, and where there's something to work out that the venue and the booking sites don't tell you.

Corrections

If something here is wrong, we'd much rather fix it than leave it — the whole point is that you can rely on these figures. Every guide shows the date it was last checked, and corrections are made against the operator's current published information. Spotted a mistake? Tell us at [email protected].

The guides