Electric Picnic boss Melvin Benn has said the return of the three-day festival feels like "heaven".
The weekend kicks off on Friday and up to 70,000 music fans will descend on the sleepy village of Stradbally in Co Laois for the first time since 2019.
Festival Republic chief Melvin said the return of Electric Picnic feels like “heaven” after a long absence in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.
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He told us: “It’s been three years in the making, you would never have thought come the end of 2019 that it would be three years before we’d be able to set foot on the grass again, but we’re here and I’m delighted.
“It’s been a long journey and obviously I had some hopes that we would get away with it in 2021, we didn’t, and of course we’re the back end of the season so we’re almost the last event really and the most important event culturally and musically in Ireland, as far as I’m concerned. We’ve waited three years, we’ll just make it more special.”
Mr Benn added that the capacity in the venue has been boosted to 70,000 since the last festival in 2019.
“We’ve made some changes to accommodate that and increased the early entry arrival so instead of 10,000 arriving on Thursday, we’ve got 20,000 so that means the traffic plan on Friday should work as it has done in the past, so that’s great.”
“It’s back to pre-Covid, I’m struggling to remember how to spell Covid at the moment. We’re all free again which is wonderful.”
He added that this year’s Electric Picnic will wow the revellers.
“Heaven. I genuinely believe it will blow their minds because although the changes ... although they are subtle, they are quite dramatic at the same time. ”
This year, festival goers will notice the main stage has been moved slightly to increase its capacity.
Melvin explained: “It’s to allow everything else to be happening. I also wanted to move Mindfield so I wanted to change that in particular and comedy has moved as well.”
Melvin said the demand for the festival is bigger than ever.
“We never look back, I only look forward. Let’s see how this year goes.
“What I do know is that there is a lot of demand for people to come to the Electric Picnic in Ireland and I want to satisfy as much of that demand as I can.”
Yesterday, we were treated to a sneak peek behind the scenes of the festival ahead of the weekend.
Our first stop was FishTown where Jerry Fish showed us around the wooded area.
Fish said: “Everyone works so hard on this site to create unique spaces and adventures so I am hoping, as always, that this will be a festival within a festival.”
From the sublime to the shanty, we wandered on to the northern fringes of the Picnic metropolis of Freetown, along the alleyways and crannies of Six Bars - a warren of snugs holding six drinkers apiece. The idea is that punters will be served by a surprise celebrity.
We were treated to a drink poured by surprise hosts singer Roisin O, Professor Luke O’Neill, Dave Whelan of Wild Youth and comedian Enya Martin.
We then took a look at the brand new theatre area where we enjoyed a performance by Ballet Ireland.
Then it was a final trip over to the main arena to watch a special show by The Coronas. They play the main stage on Sunday at 6.30pm.
Lead singer Danny O'Reilly said: “It is an amazing feeling. We're so excited. We've been lucky enough to play at it a few times. We're buzzing to be back.”
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