Jim Carroll on the events that will make the summer

Between now and September, a weekend will not pass without a festival or big music show of some stripe or other to tempt you with its wares. The big ones, the small ones, the artsy ones, the hipster ones, the community ones and the ones with the cowboys: the choice is yours.

For about 400,000 people, this will be the summer of the stetson. Unlike the Kilkenny hurlers, Garth Brooks succeeded with his drive for five, and that run of sold-out shows at Dublin's Croke Park is one for the record books as he betters One Direction and U2.

Leaving friends in low places to one side, the sheer quantity of outdoor events happening in the coming months is staggering. We have become a festival republic, a nation who’ve taken to gigging in the open air with great gusto over the past decade, regardless of the prevailing weather conditions.

Yet caveats come with the width and depth of events on the calendar. The disappearance of Oxegen points to the fact that even festivals with long, fabled histories can't rest on their laurels. In the case of Oxegen, a mixture of changing market taste, carelessness and hubris did for it in the end.

Then, we must remember this festival republic is also an austerity nation. The money to pay for a banking collapse had to come from somewhere. Those extra taxes and charges foisted on citizens have had a knock-on effect on disposable income, both for the would-be gig-goers and, in the case of younger music fans, their parents.

Festivals and outdoor shows are also subject to the laws of supply and demand. We’ve become used to seeing packed summer schedules, but the past few years have taken this to new extremes. With the exception of metal fans, who are always disenfranchised when it comes to Irish festivals, every shade of music fandom is catered for.

This means repetition in terms of line-ups (you’d be forgiven for thinking Nile Rodgers and his band have moved here). The same Irish acts of a certain level appear on festival bills all over the place and throughout the summer.

The quantity of events is good news for fans, but it means sleepless nights for promoters, who are loath to admit this. It’s impossible to find promoters who will state publicly that they’ve got thousands of tickets to sell for their cursed event because of the public’s new-found penchant for last-minute purchasing. Instead, they grin and bear it – and put up more posters and buy more ads and watch their phones anxiously for calls from the bank manager.

So, enough preamble, on with the show: read the top 25 list here