Electric Picnic organisers have released a statement after their 2021 license has been refused for the upcoming event this year.
The music festival, which takes place in Stradbally, Co Laois every year, had their license refused by the local council this week. The decision, which has been seen by many as controversial, was down to safety concerns.
Laois county council have said it’s because of “the most up-to-date public health advice made available to the council by the HSE.”
“Furthermore it is noted that under current Government measures for the management of Covid-19 events of this nature are restricted of 500 people only.”
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In a statement released yesterday festival organisers expressed their disappointment; “Together with all the fans of Electric Picnic we are extremely disappointed that Laois County Council have refused a licence for this year’s festival scheduled to take place 24th – 26th September 2021.”
“This is despite our proposal that everyone attending the event, including ticket holders, staff and artists, would have to be fully vaccinated and registered in advance for Department of Health contact tracing.”
Continuing, they added; “This is a huge blow and set back to our entire sector, which was mandated to close on the 12th March 2020 (over 500 days ago) and such a decision now means the further loss of employment for over 3,000 people, who had clung to the hope that Electric Picnic would bring an end to their period of hardship.”
Just last week organisers said they were confident that this years festival would go ahead, with strict Covid-19 restrictions in place. This comes after earlier this year they pushed the dates of the festival back until September in the hopes that Covid case numbers would be lower.
At the time the Managing Director shared his hopes on RTÉ’s News at One, explaining that he feels sure that the event will go ahead given that no one has yet told him otherwise.
“I’m investing, and all of the teams are investing in the effort to try and make sure that the Picnic can happen by presuming that we are going ahead and I’m saying presuming that we are going ahead, because let’s be 100% clear here, nobody’s told me I can’t go ahead,” Melvin said.
“I very actively believe that the Electric Picnic will take place and I say that because I can’t see any reason at this point in time why it wouldn’t take place at the end of September. We are two months away from it,” he reaffirmed.
Here’s hoping there will soon be some resolution to this!
