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

You've clearly been educated and perhaps it's the reason for your angst

I suggest if you can tear away from your business, read your OP back, slowly might help, to better understand your offensive slant on the reasons on staff shortages. As I've explained, I know of no "Quality" business who retained their staff, having any difficulty retaining said staff.

Bye

What is the best route to get into the red car park? Coming from the Carlow side.

And while I'm at it... can I sleep in my car?

A perfect example of saying nothing being the better option.

I really need to stop posting here so much and get back to Cabinet...

It's crazy that there seems to be will from all sides to put the festival on but it in all likelihood won't happen. Depressing.

The government have happily rewritten rules, legislation, guidelines and constitutionally enshrined rights since the first days of the pandemic.

They sure as siht can allow EP go ahead if they want, but its pretty clear that they are happy just to be seen to be “trying really really hard” to get it to go ahead.

Nphet are saying 90% vaccinated before fully uplifting indoor events, such as bowling, pubs and clubs.

That'll be done, according to that reporter, when a further 110,000 are vaccinated. That can happen well before the EP. So again, what more do they want before saying an outdoor event is safe?

Is everyone having dinner or something, this thread was a hive of activity today and its suddenly stopped. Silly me, yer probably out appreciating the weather like I should be.

Well, I guess if you believe the headline, and not immediately recognise what a pile of horseshit it and the whole article is....

But there's a lot of gullible (or willfully ignorant) people in this thread over the last few days who clearly don't have a clue about laws, regulations, and general logistics.

Ah man your words are beautiful. I miss the sounds you described (the sound checking which you hear the guitars/basses been tuned/checked etc)

Please god ill be in the UK next month for a gig and then we have full blown back in Ireland after that

Electric Picnic organisers make final plea to Government to let event go ahead

Catherine Martin is said to be exploring all options to allow for holding of festival

about 6 hours ago

Cormac McQuinn

The crowd at the Main Stage at Electric Picnic on the Sunday night of the 2018 festival. Photograph: Dave Meehan/The Irish Times

The organisers of Electric Picnic have made a final plea to the Government for the music festival to be allowed to proceed this year.

Festival Republic wrote to senior Government figures on Thursday asking for the festival to go ahead as a Government pilot event for people who are fully vaccinated against Covid-19.

It comes as Minister for Culture Catherine Martin was said to be exploring all options to allow for the holding of Electric Picnic this year, including the possibility it could be designated as a pilot. However, planning regulations that require large outdoor concerts to have licences from local authorities could prove to be a major hurdle.

Organisers had hoped the Stradbally festival could proceed for up to 70,000 attendees on the weekend of September 24th to 26th. However, Laois County Council refused the application for a licence earlier this month, citing HSE advice and the public health measures in place due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The council said on Wednesday there is no provision in law for it to revisit the rejected application. It also said that even if a new application is made “statutory timelines” do not allow for the processing of a new application in time for the dates originally proposed for the festival.

Planning regulations include a requirement that the licence application must be submitted 13 weeks before the concert is due to go ahead.

While Minister for Housing and Local Government Darragh O’Brien has the power to amend such regulations without Oireachtas approval, his department cast doubt on whether this would happen.

A statement said the current regulations were the outcome of detailed consultations with stakeholder groups. “It would arguably be difficult to justify amending the regulations and to vary the current timeline provisions for the purpose of one specific event,” it said.

Learn more

Committee meeting

Ms Martin is to raise the issue of Electric Picnic at Friday’s Cabinet Covid sub-committee meeting on the roadmap for easing the remaining pandemic restrictions. She is expected to have support from Tánaiste Leo Varadkar, who is also pushing for the music festival to be allowed to proceed alongside the reopening of other businesses to people who are fully vaccinated.

Ultimately, Attorney General Paul Gallagher’s input could be sought on proposals for how the event could go ahead.

Taoiseach Micheál Martin, Mr Varadkar and Ms Martin were among those contacted by Festival Republic as part of its renewed appeal for Electric Picnic to go ahead as a pilot event.

It is understood the organisers had proposed as far back as July 22nd that it would be held as a pilot event for vaccinated people.

Previous Government pilot events for music and sport did not fall under the event licensing regime.

The live music events in this regard were for much smaller crowds and fell under the 5,000-attendee threshold above which a licence must be secured from a council.

Events like the All-Ireland hurling final in Croke Park – where there were 40,000 fans in attendance – did not need a local authority licence.

The same couple of people on this thread are still clearly very scared of getting back to normality and are fighting tooth and nail to explain to all of us idiots why it shouldn't go ahead

This is very common these days and we should do our best to encourage these people and coax them back from under their beds.

This is true to a point, I know myself I was a little bit apprehensive about going to the pubs again this year after the disaster at Christmas. It wouldn't bother me as much now, but I guess people will need time. Social anxiety will be an issue for people for a while yet.