Festival-goers at the Throwback Stage during the last Electric Picnic in 2019 at Stradbally in LaoisFestival Republic’s managing director Melvin Benn has never been shy about plugging the product, but his comments last weekend about how he “100pc fully expects Electric Picnic to go ahead” next month turned out to be monumentally mistaken. That opposition made itself known this week when Laois County Council refused a licence to Festival Republic to stage Electric Picnic in Stradbally with 70,000 people in attendance. Not surprisingly, the Electric Picnic team expressed extreme disappointment at the licence refusal. The organisers’ statement said the decision came “despite our proposal that everyone attending the event, including ticket holders, staff and artists, would have to be fully vaccinated”. Featuring the likes of Kodaline, Tom Jones and Fontaines DC — all of which could easily be placed on an Electric Picnic line-up — the music will no doubt be accompanied by another sound: the grinding and gnashing of Benn’s teeth.

Source: Irish Independent August 07, 2021 01:30 UTC