Electric Picnic 2024 **No Ticket Sales / Requests** - Waiting in line, terrible time, over familiar

I was thinking only of smaller fests and even then it’d probably require a few independents to combine together.

I’m fully In agreement with you on a craft beer or two if Heineken could be persuaded but I think there’s no will on their part. I can only see it happen were Heineken to buy an Irish craft brewery as they did with Lagunitas in California and several others worldwide.

Yep, no disagreement there but latterly I don’t drink all that much at Glasto anyway. It’s just too much work the following day.

Heineken spent approx 1BN on Lagunitas over the few years (a huge figure for any brewery) when it bought it then likely spent hundreds of millions rolling it out in Europe and worldwide in subsequent years. They also created a number of other 'craft' breweries in Ireland as they know the craft beer market share is close to 5% worldwide and want a big slice of that should it grow as expected over the next 10 years. It's the same with Molson Coors buying Franciscan Well, Bulmers with Five Lamps and Estrellla Galicia with O'Hara's, they all want a slice of the craft market and have spent massive money doing so and these are just some of the Irish breweries. I cannot in any way see them allowing any sort of craft breweries sell any of their beers at sponsored events for the good of it. If they didn't have a vested interest in it/ actively try to capture as much of the market then maybe it might make more sense.

Excellent advice, Brian but cans in jocks, along with carparks, weather and awnings strictly off limits until post announcement.

Just to weigh in on the volumes point. A lot of statements are thrown out as fact in this thread but I'm not sure if this can be used to soften the core fact big festival business will invariably team up with big beverage business for financial gain. As an example Wicklow Wolf and Balikilvaran didn't seem to have any volume challenges at Forest Fest last year. Okay was only 10K vs 75K at EP. But with proper notice/planning and perhaps sharing the load across a couple of providers I don't see why these providers could step up to the mark given the chance.

Agree hence why said might change if gets bigger

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Everyone here needs to take a chill pill! I've told you loads of times already, the announcement is on April 19th and there are some good guitar bands, 1 I like as a headliner and 2 as sub headliners. Not long left to wait now, get excited chums.

Things change all the time in the music industry. The little people don't understand how negotiations work and how deals are done behind the scene. They were going to announce it last Friday but have put a 2 week pause on it because an agent requested it.

What? You mean someone stating things as fact and then coming up with crap excuses when they get caught out time after time is a bit annoying? 🤣

It looks like my point has been well made. 😊

Yes

Well all points east new head is mitski. She's playing Ireland already so it's not her

Don't think they bought out anyone legit. Cute Hoor is swill. Paulaner not much better. Moretti has its time and place I spose - reckon €8 a pint this year.

It's a good idea, I don't think Heineken have too many craft brands particularly here. They got somewhat stung selling 'fake' craft beer/ mislabeling their products like Blasket Blonde and Beanntraí Bru (not sure if they are available here) and maybe Cute Hoor too, seemingly pretending they were independent breweries. Although there does seem to be a Brewdog link (it came out their owner had stock in Heineken, they also suspiciously distribute their sub kegs). I can tell you from dealing with their stocklists for pubs they do not have a whole lot on it in terms of craft.

You are correct a lot of the major Irish 'craft breweries' are owned by major companies. i.e. Franciscan Well is Molson Coors, 8 Degrees was Pernot Ricard until recently, Killarney apparently is too as had had a mental amount of investment (rumors of C&C), O'Hara's is Estrella Galicia, Five Lamps is C&C/Bulmers, Rye River/Macgargles (they have multiple brands) Warsteiner, there's more too. Basically almost everything you see regularly in supermarkets. The big brands have wanted a slice of the Craft market as they see it as a huge part of the future. There are also a load of different brands produced I think in Dundalk you often find them in Lidl/Aldi/Tesco apparently highly automated, I forget the actual companies name. I wouldn't be surprised if there was more but they're difficult to hide. A lot of them have aggressively targeted the craft market over the years, hence why I see it such a non runner that they would generously leave a few turn over a potential couple of million between them at EP. I know a lot of people who drink craft won't touch brews by major companies, although for me if it tastes good I'm happy, particularly if there are still manufacturing/ supporting local breweries and jobs.

Your best bet would be Lagunitas, if Heineken distributed their multiple other brews/ flavours again as well as their IPA which the did previously offer at Electric Picnic I think in 2018. They have some incredible ones even their standard IPA is excellent in fairness, it's just a pity they've mishandled the brand so poorly particularly at off license level where it seems they failed at transferring production from the US to Holland and Alken-Maes which stopped it being available at off trade level for a good while here (it seems to not be available again recently since the re-return, supply issues destroys brands). Completely mismanaged the brand imo it's an awful shame. Even before that killed off their well selling other brands in Europe like Little Sumpin Sumpin, Daytime, etc, hoping a change in leadership may reconsider as it would be great to have even more variety at the festival.

Yeah, at BTP a few years back the Whiplash 3.8% on draught was amazing. I've been bringing a case of it to festivals ever since.