Ahead of Electric Picnic 2023, Sínann Fetherston joined a group of roving reporters for a behind-the-scenes look at Ireland's largest music and arts festival.
Taking place between 1-3 September 2023, the annual festival will welcome tens of thousands of revellers, hundreds of performers, and an abundance of food trucks to Stradbally, Co. Laois.
To catch you up ahead of the big event, we're sharing the latest on brand new areas, exciting installations, sustainability guidelines, and support hubs.
New areas
Croí
By day, this harmonious hub of wellness will be a stress-free environment of dance, music, poetry, shamanic drumming, guided meditation, and twerk workshops. By night, the good vibrations will be taken up a notch with fire pit gatherings and late night DJ sets.
Following a soothing presentation, Emma West, a sound therapist and shamanic practitioner from Dublin, told RTÉ Lifestyle that Croí is going to be the ultimate chill zone for festivalgoers:
"This space is really just for people to come along and give themselves a few moments to really just relax because the festival is quite busy. I think this is an amazing place for people to just settle down a little bit before they move on to see a gig."
"Sound baths are really great for quieting down the mind," she adds. "It gets you into that nice, relaxed state and restores and resettles, and brings harmony back into the body."
You can find Emma in the Realign tent on Friday, Saturday and Sunday at 3pm.
As well as swimming in harmonic sounds, festivalgoers can take a dip in a sanctuary of Water and Warmth thanks to the six wood-fired hot tubs, three cold dunk tanks, and sauna nestled away in the heart of the festival.
Sitting between Trailer Park and Mindfield, Croí will be marked by a giant heart sign, and promises to be the perfect place to catch your breath between gigs.
Production Director Sarah King told RTÉ Lifestyle that there will be a variety of free-of-charge workshops as well as some serene spots to chill out over the weekend.
"I am a bit of a hippy in that I love to be surrounded by trees and beautiful landscapes, so I definitely do get a bit overwhelmed walking through 80,000 people, so I do kind of seek out these special little harmonious spots."
Trailer Park
TV architect Dermot Bannon made a surprise appearance at Trailer Park this afternoon, announcing the arrival of Younder, a transformed school bus that he has been documenting in his upcoming series, Dermot Bannon's Super Spaces.
Created by artist Lily Guinness, the bus was inspired by Further, the bus owned by American novelist Ken Kesey and his band of Merry Pranksters, and pays homage to 1960s psychedelia.
Bannon has been transforming a variety of spaces for the upcoming show (ranging from the town of Westport to a tiny writer's room), but says that the festival installation has become a firm favourite.
"We've followed this since it was a miserable looking bus in a carpark in North Country Dublin to here at Electric Picnic. So we've followed her through the highs and the lows and the delays and the design changes."
Next, we caught up with Artistic Director Hugo Jellett. Alongside his wife, Roz Jellett, Hugo has created a number of annual EP staples such as Salty Dog, Spike Island, Providencia, and the top-secret BerlinHaus.
Although he hinted at the existence of a "yet to be revealed" area called Survivor Bar, Jellett praised Guinness's Younder bus as his favourite installation of 2023.
"I think this one has been a little bit longer in the making," he told RTÉ Lifestyle. "It's been a dream that Lilly has had for a long time and it's quite a big build for Trailer Park."
For those in search of the subterranean bunker of BerlinHaus, we wish you the best of luck. According to Jellett, the top-secret room is going to be harder to find than ever.
"It's become even more complicated to find your way in now," he insists. "I'll give you a hint: it's in a woodland, and to get there you have to crawl through some rhododendron bushes, and that's before you arrive. That's all I'm saying."
ArtLot
The ArtLot area is set to feature a brand-new stage, hosting the best alternative music and immersive art experiences across the festival weekend.
To get to the music, Picnickers will stroll through a forest filled with incredible installations along the Art Trail - a smorgasbord offering of artist creations.
AIR Hubs
To keep festival goers safe over the weekend, 11 AIR (Assistance, Information and Response) Hubs will be situated across the campsites.
These will be open 24/7 from Thursday through to Monday 2pm, and will be connected with local community groups and charities with the support of their existing safeguarding and welfare partners at the festival.
The groups involved are NCBI, ISPCA, SOSAD Ireland, Turn2Me, Portarlington Women’s Shed, Teac Tom, Portlaoise AFC and Laois Cricket Club.
— Electric Picnic (@EPfestival) August 26, 2023
Sustainability
Earlier this week it was announced that disposable vapes will be banned from this year's Electric Picnic in order to protect the land that the festival site is on.
"We've taken the position of discouraging people as much as we can in order to respect the Electric Picnic values, in order to respect the environment, and, you know, we've taken the decision not to retail them ourselves ," Festival Director Melvin Benn said over Zoom. "
As well as cutting down on single use plastic, the festival have some eco-friendly rules to follow while festival goers are on site.
Plastic
Free water refill stations will be available across the site, so be sure to pack a reusable bottle for the weekend.
Plastic cutlery and straws were banned in 2009, and were replaced by EN 13432 certified materials which can be put in the compost bin.
All cups sold and bottles sold in the arena will have a 10c deposit included in the price which you can redeem at the refund points in the arena.
Recycling
A three-bin system is in place throughout the festival, this includes a compost bin (compostable plates, cutlery and napkins plus food scraps), a recycling bin (plastic bottles and cups, cans, newspapers, magazines and clean cardboard), and a non-recyclable bin (foil, crisp packets, greasy cardboard, wet wipes).
Top tip: Taking a full recycled bag of empty drinks cans to Every Can Counts to be in with a chance to win prizes.
Tents
Do not leave your tent behind under any circumstances. If you have any broken tents, chairs, gazebos or empty batteries, simply place them in the 'not recycling' section of the various recycling areas. If you need any assistance, staff will be on hand to help.
If you wish to donate your tent, pack it up and take it to your local charity shop.
