‘Mature’ audience to keep festival trouble-free

Organisers of Electric Picnic 2012 have said their mature and respectful audience should mean a trouble-free festival later this month.

Promoter John Reynolds said the event had a “pretty flawless” record of public order as well as drug incidents over the past nine years.

Speaking at a Garda press conference in advance of the three-day music festival which sees The Cure, The Killers, and Sigur Rós among others perform for 30,000 people in picturesque Stradbally in Co Laois, he emphasised the Picnic’s special dynamic.

The festival, which features food events, art, literature, theatre, poetry and environmental elements as well as top acts, attracts a lot of families and children, and the audience is generally more mature and respectful, he said.

With about 970 security staff and 125 gardaí on duty each day, as well as a new customer care team to monitor campsites, there will be no increase in security.

“We feel we’ll have a similar audience, similar numbers and it worked well last year and previous years,” he said.

He said Electric Picnic is nothing like “one-stage” events like the Swedish House Mafia gig at Phoenix Park earlier this summer where more than half a dozen people were stabbed.

“To make a comparison between the show at the Phoenix Park and the Electric Picnic, you’re not comparing like with like,” he said. “There’s a totally different type of audience, you couldn’t compare the two events.”

Facebook feedback and ticket sales do not indicate that young people who would ordinarily attend Oxegen will go to Electric Picnic.

That audience of 18 to 21-year-olds had been “well-served” with events in Ireland and abroad this summer, he said, adding that a larger number of Irish young people than usual also attended the Spanish Benicassim festival and will attend the Reading festival in London this weekend.

Asked about the impact of cheap alcohol at festivals, he said people could buy cheap drink in off-licences at any time.

“My feeling has always been there has to come a stage where people have to take responsibility for their own actions. I think there’s many factors that can cause situations,” he said, but pointed out that responsibility cannot always be “passed over to the promoter, the gardaí, the council or whoever else”.

While Supt Yvonne Lundon said there was a “robust” policing plan in place, she emphasised that the Electric Picnic was a well-run, family-orientated festival.