With a series of summer music events planned for Belfast during August, Translink is calling on attendees to plan ahead and pre-book their travel.
Key concerts being highlighted by the public transport company are the Belfast Vital music events with Liam Gallagher (16 August), Noah Kahan (17 August) and Emerge Festival (24 and 25 August) set to be held at Boucher Road in Belfast.
With the summer rail line closure between Belfast and Lisburn to facilitate the completion of the new Belfast Grand Central Station, there will be limited capacity on the bus substitution service that will feed into the late Rail Special Trains, operating from Lisburn and Lanyon Place Train Stations.
Pre booking the rail special will be essential to ensure travel on buses linking into these later trains.
Passengers are being encouraged to plan their trip ahead of time using information on the website www.translink.co.uk/events and allow extra time for their journey.
Getting to the events by Rail:
• Travelling from the Portadown line – A bus substitution service will operate from Lisburn Train Station to Belfastand connect with normal scheduled Metro and Ulsterbus services operating along the Lisburn Road to Kings Hall/ Balmoral.
• Travelling from other lines across the network – Travel into Belfast Lanyon Place Train Station and make your way to the City Centre to connect with normal scheduled Metro and Ulsterbus services operating along Lisburn Road to Kings Hall/ Balmoral.
Getting to the events by Bus from the City Centre:
Travel to the City Centre and connect with normal scheduled Metro and Ulsterbus services operating along Lisburn Road to Kings Hall / Balmoral. Metro 9B services will be enhanced offering additional capacity for both Vital and Emerge Festivals.
Returning from the Event by Rail: Bus transfers in place with limited capacity
With limited availability, passengers must present their pre-paid ticket to Translink event staff in order to board the bus transfer service to their respective rail stations.
For those with a valid prepaid rail ticket, bus transfers will operate after the event from Kennedy Way, (near WestWoods Shopping Centre on the far side of Stockman’s Lane),between 10.50pm and 11.30pm.
Bus transfers will connect to:
• Lisburn Train Station for special trains to Moira, Lurgan and Portadown
• Belfast Lanyon Place for special trains to Bangor, Larneand Coleraine
Returning from the Event by Bus:
• Translink will operate additional services with increased capacity on Metro 9B between Belfast City Centre and Lisburn Road/King’s Hall from 10.50pm – 11.46pm (Fri / Sat 16 / 17 Aug for Vital and Sat / Sun 24 / 25 Aug for Emerge).
Coach Specials from Foyle Street:
Goldliner Coach Specials will operate between Derry~Londonderry and Boucher Road, Belfast for Liam Gallagher, Noah Kahan and Emerge. Bus tickets for these events must be bought online in advance.
Cross Border Services:
Passengers travelling on Enterprise Train services and cross border X1 and X2 coach services are also strongly advised to pre book online before they travel as services are expected to be busy.
Commenting on the importance of planning ahead, David Curry, Translink General Manager explained,
“The key message is if you are planning to travel on one of these concert dates, be aware that services will be a lot busier than usual. Plan ahead, book your ticket in advance and leave extra time for your journey. We are working closely with the concert organisers to help us get this message to all those that have booked concert tickets so everyone can have a stress-free journey.
“We are also urging passengers to prebook cross border travel around these concert weekend dates as again we are expecting services to be busy and in addition the 24/25 August is also a bank holiday weekend”, David concluded.
Further information can be found here.