All eyes on Electric Picnic 2025 as Kylie brings festival to a close
An aerial view over Electric Picnic at Stradbally, Co Laois, over the weekend.
As another successful Electric Picnic came to a conclusion with Kylie Minogue last night, festival director Melvin Benn insisted there are no plans for it to be moved away from its September home in the near future, or for the capacity to be increased past the 75,000 mark — for now.
The festival was moved forward by two weeks this year but Mr Benn insisted this was not due to Kylie Minogue being unavailable for the usual September dates.
Away from the stages, there had been complaints about the removal of two of the campsites from last year’s event — Charlie Chaplin and Oscar Wilde — and the space issues that this caused, resulting in overflow camping on Friday morning.
“We didn’t expect people to arrive as early on Friday as they did,” said Mr Benn. “We thought the arrival pattern this year was really a little bit earlier than it was.
“It was about two or three hours earlier than it was. I’d say a lot of that was down to the traffic plan.
“The Garda traffic plan really worked. We changed quite a lot of the way we brought people in. And I think that just meant people got in earlier, and that meant we had to go into the [next] campsite area.”
Mr Benn said there would need to be conversations with Laois County Council when it came to expanding the festival’s capacity.
“I’ll certainly talk to the council about whether there’s room for a bit more if there’s demand; I think there will be demand,” he said.
“But for the moment, I’m happy with where we are in that sense of it.”
He said there are no plans for Electric Picnic to take a fallow year, as Glastonbury has.
In an effort to curb drink-driving, the Road Safety Authority had set up a self-testing breathalyser machine at the exit gates and in front of the main car parks for anyone leaving the site.
GardaĂ also put in extra checkpoints around the roads of Stradbally Hall this morning to detect any people breaking the law on their way out of the festival.
“The stall that they [the RSA] had here inside the festival, they’ve had queues.
“I mean, you could barely believe that people would be queuing to get advice about drink driving, but they have, and that’s fantastic,” said Mr Benn.
“And again, if their presence helps save a life or save an injury from a car accident, I would say it’s definitely been worthwhile. And I think they’ve had great publicity about their attendance here. So it’s up to them whether they come back again or not.”
The weekend saw Irish acts upstage international headliners on occasion, Mr Benn singling out Kneecap, who he said were on an “incredible trajectory” when asked about a potential main stage appearance in future, and the Timahoe Men’s Choir, who will be “back on their tractors tomorrow morning”.
Tickets for the 2025 festival go on sale at 9am on Wednesday and Mr Benn said that one headline act is almost confirmed.
“This particular headliner — it’s very special, very special to me,” he said. “And, yeah, a long relationship with this particular headliner. I’d say we’d be in a really good place.”
