MCD Productions

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MCD Productions is an Irish music, comedy, and theatre event promoter, listed as a limited company in Ireland, with a registered company address at 7 Park Road, Dún Laoghaire, Co Dublin.

MCD is the promoter of the largest music festival in Ireland, Oxegen, previously known as Witnness. In the nineties, they ran the now defunct Féile Festival. Their Slane Castle events are also well known. MCD also promote the Bud Rising and Heineken Green Energy Festival events with sponsorship from Budweiser and Heineken respectively. Activities are mainly concentrated in the Dublin area; however, they are involved in concerts and events around Ireland.

MCD Productions Limited owns 24.3% of Mean Fiddler, organiser of the Reading and Leeds Festivals in the UK. MCD’s parent company, Gaiety Investments, is owned by Dennis Desmond - the firm is also a registered limited company in Ireland. Gaiety controls 67% of DF Concerts, 67% of T in the Park, 33% of V Festival and 35% of the Isle of Wight Festival, along with 12.5% of the Academy Music Group [1]. In Ireland, Gaiety is a backer in the soon to be launched Dublin rock radio station, Phantom FM.

The firm are currently involved in a legal dispute with a small Irish company, boards.ie ltd, over claims users on boards.ie had made about the camp site at Oxegen. Users' claims include alleged random violence and widespread tent burning at the event campsite A, claims that MCD deny, despite video evidence supporting claims.

Their Barbra Streisand concert in Celbridge, near Dublin, Ireland in July 2007, was marred by appalling organisation and poor traffic management, with many fans missing the entire first half. All cars entering the parking area needed to enter on one one-lane makeshift roadway, thereby causing a massive traffic backup that existed for several hours before the schedules start of the concert. The bumper to bumper traffic ran all the way to Dublin, a distance of over 20 kilometers. Others reported (RTÉ Radio 1, July 15, 2007) that no stewards were present to lead concert-goers to their seats and when they found their seats they were occupied already. In addition, entire sections of seatlocations did not exist at all, due to another snafu by the organisers. Ticketholders who arrived with tickets for seats that did not exist were directed to a long line of patrons who needed their tickets "reissued." Further reports suggest that people with low-value tickets were able to occupy high value seats unchallenged. Demands have been made for refunds. MCD were unavailable for comment.