Electric Picnic is giving eight up and coming Irish buskers a chance to take their music from the streets to the stage and perform at this year's festival as part of the City Stages project.
City Stages has been touring Ireland throughout the year and this August, Arthur Valentine, Bukky, Kestine, Korey Power, Leah Moran, Liliana Pinheiro, Salamay and 2Time Charlie, will combine their musical talents for a performance at Electric Picnic.
The eight musicians were selected for the performance by a panel of Irish music industry professionals.
City Stages has been visiting Dublin, Limerick, Waterford, Kilkenny, and Galway offering the next generation of musicians, currently plying their trade busking on Ireland’s city streets, to take to a much bigger stage at Stradbally, Co Laois.
To date, almost 500 musicians have applied to perform on a Three City Stage.
Electric Picnic won’t be the first major opportunity that Three’s City Stages has provided to up-and-coming Irish talent. In February, Kildare songwriter Tia Burke, a performer on the Waterford City Stages event, was selected by Self Esteem to open her sold out 3Olympia Theatre show.
Three’s City Stages will continue touring Ireland across 2023, post Electric Picnic, with more opportunities for those artists to play on some of Ireland’s biggest stages such as 3Arena and 3Olympia, opening for major artists. Applications to perform can be found at 3.ie/CityStages.
Speaking on the announcement of City Stages coming to Electric Picnic Aislinn O’Connor, Marketing Director UK & ROI, Three said: "The City Stages platform has been a huge success to date,. At Three, we are so invested in live music it is fantastic to see City Stages discover and provide an elevated platform to some incredible new artists.
"We are very excited about bringing these acts together at Electric Picnic and cannot wait for music fans to be a part of a unique performance and surely one of the highlights of the festival weekend."
City Stages ambassador and RTÉ broadcaster Tracy Clifford added: "I have had the pleasure of watching these acts perform around the country on Three’s City Stages so to see them get their opportunity to play at EP is very exciting.
"They all bring a different dynamic and diverse range of musical talent to their live shows so to see them as a collective will be very special."
