Fergus Finlay: Electric Picnic could exact a heavy toll on public health if it goes ahead

Discourse about the festival is framed in terms of audiences and artists, but the big bucks end up in the hands of a multinational

The real mystery about the Electric Picnic festival is how come there has been so much publicity about whether it will take place this year.

I must be honest with you. I couldn’t care less about Electric Picnic.

I know my colleague Mick Clifford, his tongue firmly in his cheek, wants world leaders to intervene to secure the event. Me? I couldn’t give a damn.

If it goes ahead, it will produce a couple of days' work — much-needed work, admittedly — for a group of musicians and entertainers. There’ll be a couple of nights' craic for young people — and, given what it is, for some not so young people too. There’ll be an element of a rite of passage for a few. And, with one exception, that’ll be it. Not a big deal, when all is said and done.

Those who miss it will get over it swiftly

I’ll come back to the exception in a minute. I remember, because I know some diehard fans, the excitement in the run-up to the weekend of Electric Picnics of the past. And I remember the moaning afterwards. About the prices, the sense of rip-off, the dirt, and of course the week-long hangovers.

Those who miss it, I suspect, will get over it pretty quickly without their lives being scarred. It wouldn’t surprise me, actually, if more long-term damage happened, especially for vulnerable young people, by turning up with their tents and sleeping bags.

The thing that has amazed me, if I’m being honest, is the extraordinary amount of media coverage the non-event, or maybe event, or whatever it is, is getting. You can’t open a newspaper or turn on the radio without hearing about Electric Picnic. At this stage, there wouldn’t be more publicity if we were hoping and expecting Garth Brooks to arrive and top the bill.

Wall-to-wall coverage

The other night, for example, the second item on the 9 o’clock news — after Afghanistan, but only just — concerned the fact that Laois County Council had found it impossible to overturn its previous refusal to grant a licence. Endlessly complicated planning laws had apparently got in the way and added to the sense of “woe is me” emanating from my television. Actually, not all that complicated. It turns out you can apply for a licence, and if you’re turned down you must reapply.

By the following morning, interviewers were almost wondering if emergency legislation could be rushed through the Dáil. Nobody quite went so far as to suggest that the Dáil should be recalled, since it’s in recess until mid-September, although you could hear the thought hovering.

And then suddenly it began to be reported that the Attorney General might be called in by the minister to suggest some cunning wheeze that would enable planning law to be circumvented entirely. It wouldn’t be called the Electric Picnic at all, but maybe the Electric Picnic Covid Mass-Vaccination Experiment.

I've been at wild festivals too, you know...

Surely I can’t be the only curmudgeon in Ireland who thinks we’d survive without it? And anyway, I’ve done my share of festival bingeing, so I won’t put up with being called a curmudgeon.

Admittedly, it was rather a long time ago, but when I write my autobiography I hope to be able to describe my weekend at the Munich beer festival in scintillating detail. I hope to, but I won’t be able to, because all I remember is the terrible pain I woke up in each morning.

I have a few more memories of the Tanglewood Festival held near Boston. I was a year late for Woodstock and Tanglewood in the summer of 1970 was the best I could manage. Not in the same league as Woodstock — certainly not as debauched, thank goodness — but the lineup included Herbie Hancock and Santana and I can still remember that the air was thick with the all-pervasive smell of an illegal smoked substance.

Electric Picnic is about capitalism

But let me drag myself back from those hazy happy days to Electric Picnic. The real mystery in my head is how come there has been so much publicity, why the entirely disproportionate coverage. It’s almost as if some really rich entity — bigger than all the publicans and Healy-Raes combined — has been mounting a massive public relations campaign to maximise the pressure on as many Government ministers as possible.

Surely not? Sure it’s only a little festival, held down the country once a year. How much clout could there possibly be behind it?

Well, it turns out that if Electric Picnic goes ahead, an enormous amount of money will be made. Tickets, of course, are essentially sold out, even though they’re not on sale. That’s because anyone who shelled out around €250 last year can still use their tickets this year if it goes ahead. And anything not sold will be snapped up in minutes if and when they go on sale.

That’s millions in revenue before it even starts for the company that owns the festival. And another fine percentage cut for the company that sells the tickets.

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They’re both the same company. Ticketmaster, where you’ll buy your ticket and pay your commission, is owned by Live Nation. Live Nation owns the festival, and it is to them that all profits will accrue. Not to the musicians or the caterers or the cleaners or even the owners of the land. They’ll all make a few bob, but the big bucks — the really big bucks — will go to Live Nation.

Live Nation is not an Irish company. It has an Irish subsidiary, with some no doubt really talented employees. But Ireland is a dot in its ocean.

Live Nation claims to be the largest entertainment company in the world. Their ticketing platform operates in 46 countries. The company owns, operates, or has exclusive rights in 289 venues around the world, including the 3Arena in Dublin.

They sold 485m tickets through Ticketmaster and its associated companies in 2019.

They’ve taken a serious hit because of Covid, naturally. Pre-Covid, according to Forbes magazine, they had annual revenues of $11.5bn.

All over the world, the company is mounting campaigns to get the entertainment industry reopened. Their interest in Electric Picnic is about the money, and only the money. And if the campaign to open Electric Picnic succeeds, it will be a huge boost to the rest of their portfolio.

You only have to look at their website to see how extensive that is. This is not a company that believes in hiding its light under a bushel. Until the pandemic started, they were buying everything that moves, all over the place. Festivals, theatres, all sorts of venues.

I don’t wish them ill. I do think it’s curious that no one sees anything odd about the largest concert promoter in the world owning the largest ticket-selling company in the world, but hey, that’s capitalism, right?

But I think we’re kidding ourselves by turning everything inside out to get Electric Picnic back on the road.

A couple of nights of endless drinking and possibly sleeping in a wet field, as attractive as it might sound to some, could exact a heavy toll on public health when it’s all over. Like I said at the start, I just don’t see the point.