ELECTRIC CLIMAX TO FESTIVAL See you all ’nic year
‘GLORIOUS’ WEEKEND HAILED
ELECTRIC Picnic boss Melvin Benn has confirmed the festival will return again next year — but he won’t be increasing its capacity.
The Festival Republic chief said the festival was a success despite the wind and rain over the weekend which failed to dampen the 70,000 music revellers spirits.
And as Arctic Monkeys closed the curtain down on an epic weekend, Benn confirmed it will return again next year.
He said: “Lots of highs. I think the low is that it is going to finish…
Capacity
“Monday we’ll have to pack it all up and we’ll have to wait for another year. One thing I’m pretty certain about is that — and I am saying this and putting this on record — that I’m certain Covid is not going to come back and disrupt us again, we’ll be back next year.”
When asked if he would consider increasing capacity for next year’s festival, he said: “No not in 2023.”
This year’s festival went from 55,000 to 70,000.
“Actually, that is one of the things that the amount of people in Stradbally chatting to locally, they’re just like it is so important to be back here. So important to be Laois.
“It’s so important in the entire country, really. It’s been fantastic.”
And he’s already in talks with next year’s headliners as tickets will go on sale on Saturday.
He said the festival next year will go “fully digital” next year for the first time ever.
Digital
“For the first time ever, there won’t be the ability to queue at a Ticketmaster outlet to buy a ticket so that’s always been the case in the past. Ticketmaster has closed all their retail outlets so for the first time ever we’re fully digital.
“I think Wednesday and Thursday we’ve got pop up opportunities with Ticketmaster setting up that those who traditionally bought with cash can go and register getting a code so the loyalty programme will continue.”
But he said there isn’t much he wants to change to the festival next year, but is hoping to go even more greener by looking to power the main stage off the festival’s own electricity.
“I think we’re already pretty green. All our cups and everything, you know all the plastic bottles that we sell are recycled plastics. All the cups can be collected and reused and recycled. That is a fairly major piece.
“One of the things I’m really keen to do is bring mains electricity to the site. What that will allow me to do is effectively power the main stage from off the grid, but I can power it from off the grid from electricity from renewable sources. But he said that it was “maybe a two-year project…”
Melvin said there hasn’t been lows at all as he summed up his Electric
Picnic experience this year as being an “glorious, absolutely glorious” weekend.