Michael Clifford: Electric Picnic must be saved for all our sakes 

Time is running out and we need to get some heavyweights on the job, pronto. Does anybody have Bono’s number?

Anybody who could use their clout to get the ball rolling? Because if something doesn’t happen fast, Electric Picnic is on a one-way ticket to Palookaville.

There are less than 30 days to save Electric Picnic. After that, we’re heading into October, and with the way the climate is acting up, winter will come dropping quickly, burying Stradbally under a blanket of snow before Halloween hovers into view. Wake up, people. Have you any idea what is at stake?

Our options are narrowing. We need to get some heavyweights on the job, pronto. Does anybody have Bono’s number? Maybe if he waved his arms, standing on the shore in Killiney, something might happen. Failing that he could do a ring around to world leaders, like Nancy Pelosi or Angela Merkel or one of the Kardashians. 

More divisive than Saipan

Maybe Bono could do a ring around to world leaders, like Nancy Pelosi or Angela Merkel or one of the Kardashians. File picture

Anybody who could use their clout to get the ball rolling? Because if something doesn’t happen fast, Electric Picnic is on a one-way ticket to Palookaville. This is bigger than Garth Brooks, potentially more divisive than Saipan. This is major.

At the start of week, Electric Picnic was dead and buried. On August 4,
Laois County Council turned down the application to hold the event in Stradbally, where it has taken place since its inception in 2004. 

The reasons for the refusal were “having regard for the up to date advice from the Health Service Executive in their statutory submission” and “having regard to government public health measures”.

The refusal was a blow to the big business that runs the boutique event and the section of the public, largely middle-aged and middle class, for whom the event has evolved into an annual pilgrimage of sorts. 

Now, for some strange reason, the event has come to symbolise how the arts have been left behind as society opens up.

All around the country, in small venues and community halls, arts events are still restricted under current regulations. 

The vast bulk of the arts sector operates at a local level, playing Friday night gigs, acting in small productions, teaching kids how to dance, watering the roots of society that it might be nourished through creative self-expression. Their usually meagre livelihoods have been decimated. 

Yet, as far as the media in general is concerned, the real tragedy is the failure to get the Picnic back up and running.

Another pang of pain

The arts sector felt another pang of pain after last weekend’s All-Ireland hurling final. Picture: Eddie O'Hare

The arts sector felt another pang of pain after last weekend’s All-Ireland hurling final. The GAA, to give them their due, have been largely exemplary in how they have dealt with Covid. 

For instance, no alcohol was on sale at Croke Park last Sunday. Some see that as the hand of a nanny state but a fairer assessment is that the GAA is adapting when necessary to living with the virus. 

But the association could do little about what happened in the streets and pubs around the venue, where things got a little out of order. People in the arts looked at that and asked about sauce for the goose and not even crumbs for the gander.

Chief Medical Officer Tony Holohan said he 'wouldn’t have a major concern to express in public health terms' if events like Electric Picnic were permitted for the fully vaccinated. File picture: Gareth Chaney/Collins

Inevitably, the Picnic was resurrected. On Tuesday, Tony Holohan was asked whether events like the Picnic could be permitted for those who are fully vaccinated. 

“We wouldn’t have a major concern to express in public health terms about that if it could be achieved,” he said.

Game on, as far as everybody was concerned. Except, Dr Holohan is the chief medical officer of the State, not a dictator who rules by decree. The licence was denied by a statutory body on the basis of existing regulation and a submission from the HSE. 

Now Tony said it was okay so we could all ignore the messy business of democratic institutions and the law. 

Ironically, some in the media who at various times decried the overweening power they interpreted Dr Holohan as exercising, now treated his endorsement as a tablet sent down from the mountain.

Naturally, some politicians couldn’t resist hopping aboard the media bandwagon. 'Tánaiste Leo Varadkar to argue that Electric Picnic be allowed go ahead’, blazed one headline. 

Next thing you know the poor old Attorney General was called for. The Daily Mail informed us that “The CMO says yes. The Council says no. Now the government has asked the country’s top law officer, no less, to find a way to rescue the festival".

One would not normally describe the AG as poor old Paul Gallagher, but look at what he’s being put though. Mr Gallagher is a serious dude who knows his onions. As AG, he has grappled with two existential crises, the economic collapse of 2008 in his first stint, and now the pandemic. 

Then last month he was asked to lower the standing of his office by providing legal cover for Varadkar’s attendance at an event in the Merrion Hotel.

The lawyer must have thought it couldn’t get worse than that, but now his opinion is being sought on whether the Picnic should go ahead. 

Disband Laois County Council

Certainly, the Tánaiste would be thrilled if the Picnic proceeded. File picture

Do they want him to disband Laois County Council under some ancient Cromwellian diktat? 

Or does Leo expect him to click his fingers and declare that people who get up early in the morning are legally entitled to access to a boutique festival at this stage of the pandemic?

Certainly, the Tánaiste would be thrilled if the Picnic proceeded. He himself is drawn from the very marrow of the demographic that attend and it is inevitable he would be photographed, wearing a tight T-shirt, standing in a field with a beer in hand, cool as a breeze. 

This could his redemption from leaks and Merriongate.

In fact, the key to understanding the hullabaloo this week about the Picnic is the demographic. All who work in the arts and entertainment worlds have been very badly impacted by the virus but the Picnic is not the main event for the vast majority of them. By contrast, it is the main event for many in the power centres of society who might be likely to attend. 

This demographic has got off relatively lightly during the pandemic, retaining their jobs, working from home and in many cases actually saving money because of the constraints on consumer spending. 

This is their own little pet project in the reopening of society and so they have blown its significance out of all proportion, deflecting from the deprivation that is going on in arts and entertainment.

But enough of that. What really matters is that we get what we want. For my part, I’m going on hunger strike at the gates of Áras an Uachtaráin in protest at the deprivation of my right to attend a boutique music festival and pay a tenner for a falafel burger. 

If you get a hold of Bono, tell him I’ve a flask of tae in the van and am expecting him to join me in this stance that goes to the very heart of human rights for us middle-aged, middle-class folk.

 A line must be drawn in the sand. Keep her lit.