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There were 80,000 fans at Electric Picnic 2026. Valerie Flynn/The Journal
Review
How bad was the mud? And how good was the music? Highs and lows of Electric Picnic 2026
This was the most Irish edition to date, and not just because of the weather.
THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS at this difficult time for anyone still journeying home from Stradbally, Co Laois today.
When this reporter made it back to her car in the wee small hours, exhausted festival-goers were trying to push their vehicles – wheels spinning and engines revving – out of a muddy morass.
A bit hairy in the EP car park tonight. pic.twitter.com/I5WBm4DBWN
— Valerie Flynn (@valerie_flynn) August 31, 2026
Let’s be real: sitting at home, cosily scrolling on your phone through photos and videos of washed-out tents and swamp-like paths at a festival you’re not at is one of life’s great pleasures. We won’t take that away.
Overheard as campers emerged from their tents on Saturday morning: “The swimming trunks were actually a good choice.” Overheard on the walk/wade through the mud on the route into the stages: “I can’t believe you were talking about going to the barefoot garden.”
But I’m going to call it now: for most – not all, but most – festival-goers over the course of the weekend as a whole, the weather wasn’t as bad as you might think from social media. Away from the campsites (we will come on to that) the vibes at the gigs were great.
There were undoubtedly a fair few refugees sleeping in their cars by the bitter end. The main campsites were just not up to scratch in some areas. Paths that needed boards or wood-chip didn’t get them, and the sight of the long, sad queue for the showers on Sunday morning would break your heart.
More and more people may be ready to pay up for glamping and fancier options, but it’s probably high time for the main campsites to be shown some love.
That said, inside the main arena itself the mud was… sticky but manageable. (I am running out of ways to describe mud here.) Thank god for Doc Marten, whoever he or she was.
As for the rain, while there were a handful of biblical downpours, these were short enough lived and the wet weather held off for all the main stage headliners. Also for the obligatory post-midnight wander through the weird and wonderful part of the festival away from the main stages. That’s where the hard partying and – for many – the magic of the event really happens.
One 18-year-old reveller I spoke to described his Saturday night of raving in the same breath as “amazing” and “like Apocalypse Now”. Make of that what you will.
The sun did appear hear and there. There was even a timely appearance for pop star Zara Larsson’s tropical-themed Friday evening show. Just as well. It would have been embarrassing to have to perform Lush Life in the rain.
Even when there was a bit of a drizzle going on, as for the Saw Doctors’ Sunday set, it did nothing to dampen spirits or keep the crowds away. As festival-goers I interviewed on Friday reminded me, this is Ireland. People own raincoats and know how to use them.
Big moments and Irish acts
Also on the subject of this being Ireland, there is no such thing as keeping a secret, so the crowd in front of the main stage for the Saw Doctors was a sea of GAA jerseys ahead of the Mayo football teams “surprise” cameo.
The Tuam men followed the Green and Red of Mayo with N17 and the audience went, if possible, even more bananas. There was jumping, there was jiving – you might not think you could jive in the cramped conditions of a festival pit, but two young lads in Mayo jerseys in front of me were twirling each other around as if they had an entire wedding dance-floor to themselves.
CMAT opening her Saturday night set with a peerless cover of Dolly Parton’s Jolene was another electrifying moment. I had to watch a video of it back this morning to relive it because it was still in my head – always a sign you’ve been at a gig for the ages.
The Meath woman, clearly in her element on the Electric Picnic main stage four years after she first played one of the smaller venues at the same event, told the crowd how much it means to her to be there.
“It’s really magical to know my home understands me the best,” she said.
The Irishness of this year’s Electric Picnic line-up was something really notable, with Fontaines DC, Amble and the Mary Wallopers also getting massive receptions on the main stage. As promoter Melvin Benn explained yesterday, what else would you expect? Electric Picnic reflects what’s popular and Irish acts right now are “dominating the UK and Ireland, there’s no question about that”.
Away from the main stage there were also some brilliant gigs by Irish acts including up-and-coming Dublin post-punk band Gurriers, and a blinder of a set by folk-metal four-piece The Scratch.
The Scratch pic.twitter.com/tBnCMtiwRm
— Valerie Flynn (@valerie_flynn) August 31, 2026
It wasn’t all Irish acts by any means. Many festival-goers were anxiously keeping an eye on the time on Saturday night to be able to nab a decent spot for extremely buzzy art rock band Geese. Irish music journalist par excellence Nialler9, for instance, had them ranked number 1 on his list of must see acts for the weekend. The Brooklyn four-piece played an epic set that will have given their (only slightly creepily obsessive) Irish fans their money’s worth for the weekend.
House: good news and bad news
But many festival-goers will not have encountered a guitar from one end of the weekend to the other. They came to Stradbally to dance, and while the house and electronica line-up did not by any means disappoint them, the organisation around it did.
Dangerous overcrowding and a crowd collapse at the relatively small Smirnoff stage on Friday night preceded what should have been a massive set from house legend Armand van Helden.
This guy was playing the main stage at an 80,000-capacity festival in Manchester in June, for example, in an afternoon slot. So what was he doing on a minor stage at an 80,000-capacity festival in Laois at night, when partygoers were out in force?
Benn, the promoter, admitted yesterday that the stage in question was just much too small.
The issues continued into Saturday night when so many people tried to make it to see another big-name DJ, Duke Dumont, that the festival had to send mobile phone notifications urging people to stay away.
Fans I spoke to outside the tent (which looked to be heaving) told me they had come to the festival for the likes of Armand and Duke, along with Ben Hemsley on Friday, which by all accounts went down a storm.
They were understandably frustrated at being unable to see the acts they paid their €300 ticket price for. Being in their early 20s, they were also perplexed by the fact that at that moment in time Damon Albarn was over on the main stage performing Gorillaz tracks from before they were born.
Benn staunchly defended the festival’s organisation yesterday when I asked him whether it’s doing enough to cater for this contingent. But I think it’s fair to say that no-one would be surprised if some changes are quietly made before next year’s event.
Electric Picnic is a behemoth – 80,000 people, countless stages, innumerable interesting and fun things to see and do, miles and miles to walk. It will be the same size again next year, and there is no question that when tickets go on sale this week (pre-sale on Tuesday, general sale on Friday) they will be snapped up.
The festival is so big that two people with different tastes could go to it and have completely different but equally excellent weekends. But the organisers will need to figure out how to ensure that what they’ve built can work on this scale for everyone.
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