Electric Picnic 2021 - Cancelled :( **No Ticket Sales / Requests **

Yeah, believe it or not we're a country of laws. There is absolutely no way a council or any other body is going to go outside procedure for this (contentious) event if it were even possible. Why would they?

The picnic was never going to happen once the initial license was rejected. You simply cannot organise an event of this magnitude in a month. In a normal year, construction on the picnic site would've started weeks ago.

You don't need the dail to sit to change the numbers at outdoor events. Those changes are done by SI.

I'm not being condescending to anyone, pal. Aside from corrupt officials, statutory procedures are not deviated from since any deviation will almost certainly end up in court. So yeah, your idea is a controversial one, since it would be highly irregular.

The idea that the picnic was going to happen after the initial license was reflected was nothing other than wishful and the promoters knew this.

Things getting a little heated here, folk need to chill. I have a back up anyway if its gonna be 2022, my friend Aaron helps run AVA in Belfast which happens to be same dates as our 'supposed' Picnic, so I might go down and do that, have never worked a city event before but should be a change.

Latitude was organised, built and proceeded with four weeks notice. EP can do the same.

Its a little bit farcical now. Instead of all this effort to give EP the go ahead, id rather gov break their balls getting the industry open so that artists can earn a living straight away and work every week from now on, and not just concentrate on one big weekend

Absolutely no reason why these two goals are mutually exclusive.

As I've said multiple times, the pre- conditions for attending seem to me to be as good as they can be. Couple that with the percentage of adults vaccinated - it will be a safe event and to your point, a catalyst for other events starting back up.

I'm delighted the government are now being played at their own game. As far as the arts are concerned, they're beginning to learn the squeaky wheel gets the oil.

It's seems Leo has asked the AG to rescue the event, last time the AG was asked to intervene, it didn't end well for Leo.

I fear this is more Kite flying by Leo.

If the AG does get involved and it's a big if, he will look at this from a purely legal perspective, Planning, Local Authority autonomy etc. Laois County Council have made their position clear, even if Government magically alter existing guidelines. Of course all this a possibility albeit official government policy states the decision is for the local authorities to make.

There are other considerations, the original application can not be reviewed or appealed, a new application would have to materially different, even if a new application considered the local authority have stated there is not enough time to meet dates pencilled in by MCD and at a minimum numbers will be reduced leaving alot of people even more annoyed.

This all aside from local objections (some feel this irrelevant, I'm afraid it is with rural politics)

Who knows but it just seems entirely pointless at this stage and Leo in particular joining the party a little late.

is it really now?

are there direct flights there from anywhere in ireland by any chance......?

FFG trying to save face by making it appear they are doing everything to get EP to go ahead.

When the reality is they have done very little and that Holohan / NPHET hasnt changed his mind because he was never against it in the first place but they used “public health advice” as it being the issue.

It must actually be potentially dangerous to have something this big organized at such short notice. The logistics could be prone to shortcuts and thats not right either.

The young people of this country have once again been let down by the “leaders” of this country and i hope its made abundantly clear the next time people are asked what they think.

This is also a terrible decision for the wider community. If vaccinated people which cant return to normal in the company of other vaccinated people then we need to admit now the massive failings of the vaccination program because people will turn their back to it.

Leo is just playing sounbite politis, a retort to Sinn Feins mouthing a few months back to open up pups and entertainment and thus be the young persons champion. All political BS. FR and MCD are as bad at this stage, just call it and be done with it, focus on next years line up and make it the best ever. I shold have the van loaded and be loading up with ice and cool beers and hitting the road today for the weekend. Forecast is good and it would have been a great weekend. Sunshine and cool nights - fantastic. I was in the garden around 9:30pm last night tidying up and it was cool with a heavy dew falling. Another few weeks will be nowhere near as pleasant.

The industry would be better served by getting gigs back up and running inside with controls and monitoring as for the next 8 months thats where its at. Summer is over, winter is coming and I'd really like to see some proper stuff lining up now that we could look forward to. As mentioned EP is only one weekend but the regular venues are ongoing and sustainable and worth a lot more to the industry as ahole the FR and their golden goose EP.

At the same time, vendors will be mad to make up for lost business though. It hasn't gotten the the Garth Brooks level of farcical just yet, we just need the Mexican ambassador to offer to intervene.

It will start winding down on 7 Sept anyway so people might start to feel it's better to get back into something by then.

If it goes ahead and a person cant go or decides not to go there is no need whatsoever to facilitate them - they simply miss out or sell their ticket.

I disagree with you, my friend runs a restaurant, his regular part time staff who previously worked 10-15 hours per week (getting €160 odd) won't come back to him as they're getting €350 PUP. It's too loose, they can repeatedly say there a close contact and isolating etc.

He's really struggling to keep open, working every hour of the day himself.

A family member has a pub, he's in the same boat, he's actually resorted to paying cash simply to get staff to come in, so they're getting paid and PUP.

While I know PUP number's are declining, there are a number of sectors that aren't allowed to open or opening under restrictions that still need to have the PUP in place. You can't remove this yet for a night club for example.

EP build will have the absolute same issue, in fact people in that sector may have moved off into completely different sectors.