NO VAPES OR cigarettes will be sold at this year’s Electric Picnic festival.

In 2023, Electric Picnic banned single-use disposable vapes from the festival and added the products to the list of prohibited items, a move which meant only reusable devices could be sold at the festival.

But the festival is going further this year.

Electric Picnic’s website states that “there are no nicotine inhaling products (vapes and cigarettes) being sold at Electric Picnic this year”.

Only a handful of dedicated vendors were permitted to sell cigarettes at Electric Picnic, with the festival’s trader rules barring general traders from selling cigarettes or tobacco.

Tobacco kiosks, once easy to spot across the main arena, have steadily become harder to find in recent years, while vendors selling vapes and nicotine pouches have become far more common.

Nicotine pouches have become increasingly popular in Ireland in recent years – they are small rectangles containing nicotine, flavourings and other ingredients which users put between their lip and gum.

In 2025, Velo, a British American Tobacco brand selling tobacco-free nicotine pouches, became an official festival partner, a deal that drew sharp criticism from the Irish Cancer Society.

Velo remains listed as an Electric Picnic “partner” on the festival’s website.

In February, new legislation came into force which bans “temporary or moveable premises”, such a pop-up shops and market stalls, from selling vapes and cigarettes.

The Journal has contacted both Londis, the official campsite shop for Electric Picnic, and the festival itself for clarification on whether nicotine pouches are included in the ban.

Disposable vapes

A note on the festival’s website states that disposable vapes are “made of a mixed compound of materials which make them very difficult to recycle and hazardous to the environment if not disposed of correctly”.

It said the decision to add single-use disposable vapes to the list of prohibited items in 2023 was done “in order to protect the land the festival site is on”.

The festival organisers also remarked that single-use vapes can harm the animals that live at Stradbally Hall.

Any single-use vapes found at the festival are confiscated and not returned to attendees.

Crowds of 80,000 people are expected at the Co Laois festival in Stradbally Estate, which runs from Friday 28 August until Sunday 30 August.

Lewis Capaldi, Gorillaz, CMAT, Zara Larsson, Fontaines D.C. and Amble are among the headline acts.

With additional reporting from Nicky Ryan