RDS Simmonscourt

RDS hosts the annual Web Summit, and in 2015 hosted 46,000 attendees. The space is enormous and expansive, covering two major buildings with a walk between them. Having a 10 minute or so walk between buildings was nice when it got too hot inside (frequently) but meant that switching stages resulting in missing the majority of at least one talk. The wifi is a continual point of contention, and it was really hit or miss this year. It worked great in some of the less dense areas and stages, but slowed to a crawl or stopped completely in others. The venue was a nice touch of traditional Dublin with colored sheep roaming and timber buildings on the grounds and the nearby park played a nice part in food available for lunch. The library building was gorgeous and made for a great speaker stage. The buildings did get quite hot during the day, so an escape outside was needed. The arena itself looked a bit dilapidated but the traditional home of horse racing in Dublin is worth the visit.

Having done all of my UCD summer exams in this building, I have a natural instinct to hate the place, but it’s really nothing to do with the facilities.
I’ve been to a few events here and they all seem to be run pretty well. It’s a huge space so it’s great for those big conventions like the Beauty Show or Off the Rails back in the day. It’s kind of shoddy inside, it’s definitely been around for a long time without much improvement, but hey, it does the job. There are few cafes in the complex which are a little expensive but OK if you just want to grab a coffee.

Who killed WiFi? We killed WiFi! Boohoo!
(Web Summit 2014 attendee)

To make matters worse you now have to drag urself over to the main arena for a parking ticket now…

I was here for a holiday and travel show recently.
The stands are squished right in for maximum capacity.
People were mad for their free bags, free pens and competitions. OK, I was guilty of the last one, but the ignorance of some folk pushing their way in for a free bag. Good grief!
Parking, while not free, was handy. And we got parked near to the door, which made my shuffling around on a crutch easier.

I have been to RDS Simmonscourt only once and it was for a professional exam which I was taking. The testing room is massive as can be seen in the storefront photo with rows and rows of desks. I have taken many graduate and professional exams in the US and I have never experienced that volume of people in one location taking exams. It was quite intimidating although maybe for that purpose it is well controlled? The proctors were amazingly strict, which is maybe what you want for an exam environment.
The building is older and the facilities are showing their age. It may have been the exams fault, but I really just wanted to get out of there as soon as I could.

Surprisingly bleak. Hall 6 and 7 of the RDS date back to the 1879 and there is definitely still a pretty Dickensian feel to the whole place.
The place just isn’t fit for expos or exhibitions. The space is deceptively small, so as soon as any decent number of visitors arrived, hall 7 became gridlocked. Hall 6 was being used for refreshments and seminars which was functional enough, even though it was basically just a bunch of fold-​out chairs and a coffee maker.
All in all, I’m sure the RDS has much better to offer and that this section is just a throw-​back.

I remember coming second in the Kellogg’s Sports Awards project here and receiving my prize from the great runner Eamonn Coughlan.
I remember getting the highest score in the crazy soccer challenge and thus winning an Irish footie jersey.
I also remember having a slow dance here to Bön Jovi’s, «Bed of Roses.» Oh teenager awkwardness is quite awful.
Recently I was here for Invasion Dublin in a Unilocal capacity and I got my picture taken with a storm trooper…
I appear to have been at the pinnacle of my success aged 16 and now it’s a slippery slope… Top prizes to posing with a storm trooper who I was curtly corrected for trying to bond by saying,
«Star Trek — right?»
«Star Wars actually.»
«Oh.»
“You are not one of us are you?”
«Spock?»
Parking is not very will signed so that would be my one big complaint you have to enter through an off round. To it’s credit the venue is a memory maker and long may it continue to be.

I have been to a few trade shows at the RDS and it is an ok venue for such events. I have never been to a concert here, so I can’t comment on it’s finer points when it comes to gigs, but as far as a venue for trade shows it’s not too bad. The location in my opinion is better than City West, which is a real pain to get to, but it is still a bit out of the way. Getting here via public transportation is a joke so you are best off grabbing a taxi in town, which will run you about € 8-​€ 12 depending.

The Simmonscourt part of the RDS (referred to as Hall 8) is located on Simmonscourt Road behind Beweleys Hotel. It is used as a separate venue to the main RDS complex around the corner, and has played host to two main recurring events at different times of my life: the annual Funderland funfair which was the highlight of the year for me as a child (and still comes here around Christmas every year), and the dreaded end-​of-​year exams for four years running as a student in Trinity College.
The hall hosts smaller events, exhibitions and shows than the main RDS complex. It can also be booked for corporate Christmas parties, weddings, conferences and (eugh) examinations.

As a convention centre or as a big mad function room, Simmonscourt is ok, but it rarely used for that purpose any more. In the past few years the RDS Simmonscourt has been used as an interim replacement for the Point Depot (or the O2 as it’s now known) while it was undergoing renovation.
I saw some of my favourite bands here and was shocked at the sound quality. You may as well have had the band play a game of volleyball with an out of tune electric guitar in a ceramic box. The acoustics are crimes against eardrums and when you’re watching Billy Corgan play a twenty minute (crappy) feedback solo, you’ll want to murder your ears shut.
I detest this place. Long live the O2.
Stupid name and all.

This is the place where careers are made and destroyed… where year in year out, coffee filled, sleep deprived, paranoid college students walk wearily into the endless forest of wobbly exam chairs and write complete bullshit for as long as they can hold a pen, in the divine hope that one of three things happen in the following hours…
1. gremlins pop out from under the doors and light fire to the whole building and that narky Head Examiner and her shrieking mess of a voice… thus rendering your exam conditions unacceptable and giving you a high pass mark.
2. Elvis pops out of the floor with a guitar and a large bazooka… and you can guess the rest…
or… and this is the least likely.
3. That somewhere in there. amongst the random stupidity being produced from the end of your pen… there is something worth marking and maybe passing… though it is a long shot!
Simmonscourt is a horrible place that leaves you with no doubt that you are simply another number in a big machine… churning out graduates with no real hope for the future…
and if you are real lucky a bird will shit on you or your exam paper while you work.
Yippee