How Electric Picnic is becoming GAA club championships' break weekend

County boards are increasinly working to avoid a clash with the festival. 

THE GREEN AND RED: The Mayo All-Ireland Football Championship winning team join The Saw Doctors on the Electric Picnic Main Stage. Pic: Ramsey Cardy 

Increasingly more by design than accident, Electric Picnic weekend is becoming the unofficial break in the GAA club championship window.

A series of counties have quietly scheduled matches to avoid clashing with the three-day festival in Stradbally, which took place between August 28 and 30 this year.

The Wexford County Board were an exception last year when they openly admitted to not arranging fixtures for the weekend and they did so again last month.

Kilkenny informally took steps this year when they chose to stage the fourth round of their league stage of their senior hurling championship in the weekdays leading up to the event.

Neighbouring Carlow organised Round 5 of their senior football championship similarly, while host county Laois have long had in place a reduced fixtures schedule that weekend.

For the second year in succession, no programme of matches took place in Cork on the same August weekend as the event. Neither were there any senior club football fixtures in Kerry.

The appearance of 13 of the Mayo senior panel on stage with The Saw Doctors in Stradbally last Sunday week was obviously made possible by a break weekend in the county’s football championships.

Kildare organised no adult games over the three days of the festival. Limerick arranged one senior hurling game across the Saturday and Sunday of the weekend. Lower grade championship games in Dublin have also been known to be rearranged to facilitate players going to Stradbally.

Last year, Wexford chairman John Kenny revealed the popularity of the festival among players had prompted them to classify it as a gap weekend. “The CCC based it on what went on that weekend last year. We had requests coming in from all over the place and everybody wanting to play their matches on a certain day at a certain time. So, we just had the weekend free in the calendar.” 

The scheduling of concerts has previously forced the GAA to work their fixtures around them. The prospect of Zach Bryan’s two gigs in Páirc Uí Chaoimh in June interfering with Cork’s senior footballers’ championship run saw them organise league games for Páirc Uí Rinn. In the end, John Cleary’s side avoided the clash having beaten Donegal in Round 2.

Two years ago, Cork defeated the same opposition in an All-Ireland SFC group game in Páirc Uí Rinn as remedial work was required on the Páirc Uí Chaoimh field following a Bruce Springsteen concert.

In 2022, the county’s Munster SFC semi-final against Kerry was eventually organised for Páirc Uí Rinn because of Ed Sheeran’s presence in Páirc Uí Chaoimh. Their hurlers gave up home advantage for their Munster SHC meeting with Clare and lost the game in Thurles.

Ten years ago, Dublin GAA complained that Springsteen’s residency in Croke Park had a knock-on effect on their club championships. The unavailability of GAA HQ pushed back Dublin’s Leinster SHC clash with Wexford by a week, and as a result their county board had to reschedule club matches.

Electric Picnic is scheduled for August 27-29 in 2027, although speculation about Oasis concerts on one or two weekends earlier in the month may give county boards’ competitions control committees further headaches.