Electric Picnic 2024 **No Ticket Sales / Requests** - Waiting in line, terrible time, over familiar

Fanirish

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122175952#Comment_122175952

Alot of it is agent driven. and in other European countries there is big outdoor headline show venues as well which has similar effect on festival line ups in those countries why x, y, z isn’t playing certain festivals.
A key reason why certain “festival” bands don’t play festivals in ireland is simply the timing of their EU tours, then promoters only options is outdoor shows such as malahide, marlay, trinity, iveagh, st Anne’s, fairview. Early September is historically a bad time for festivals as it’s the last gasp. Many international bands concentrate on late May/June or July/august for their 5 or 6 week summer run.

Over the last decade, between EP, ATN and Forbidden they have captured an Enormous amount of festival calibre acts.

Musicrules

What kind of work has our man Jerry been doing? He's seen the line up, he wants to save us doesn't he?

rockterrain

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122176085#Comment_122176085

Your staunch defence of the calibre of acts of EP, Forbidden Fruit and ATN is baffling. Anyone with a cent of wherewithal can see they don't stack up by international standards. The main acts as you rightly pointed out do their own standalone shows where in other countries they'd be part of a festival bill - multiple cases in point but a few recent examples discussed in this thread for this summer include James, Liam Gallagher and Fontaines DC.

Gary_dunne

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122175221#Comment_122175221

I would disagree with this point, the people who think Calvin Harris is amazing probably wouldn't be more into The Chemical Brothers or The Prodigy. Harris is far more pop like dance than the others and as someone mentioned earlier on majority of his songs have a popular female artist singing over them eg Ellie Goulding and Dua Lipa. He's nearly a completely different genre.

Fanirish

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122176664#Comment_122176664

James headlined a festival here last year, Fontaines have played EP and ATN in the last 3 years of festivals here (ATN 19, EP 22) so those acts do regularly play festivals and aren’t skipping them per se.
the likes of EP, ATN and Forbidden do stack up very respectfully for 70k, 35k and 10k capacity festivals in europe in the months they are one for the genres they attempt to cover.
go check their accounts, none of them are licences to print millions upon millions of euro and offering cheapo acts.

The Davestator

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122176733#Comment_122176733

EP is the largest festival in Ireland and it's the 20th anniversary, yet we are being served up Kodaline (Has beens at best), Noah Khan (might be), Gerry Cinnamon (never was), Calvin Harris (irrelevant for years) and Raye (whoever that is). It's a shocker and no sleight of hand with Spotify streams will convince the majority of people on this thread otherwise.

scruff monkey

On the Noah Kahan thing, been looking up stuff on him (no f'kin way am exposing my ear drums to it) and to be fair, his last tour was pretty large and he's done the grammys appearance, for all our blessed ignorance of him, he's big enough as an act.

the rest of them can do one though (apart from Kylie).

Flaneur OBrien

Its just mad that LCD Sound system announce their own gig, with support from IDLES, Young Fathers and Sh*t Robot. These would have been shoo ins in the past for EP.

(I'm sure someone will be in to explain how they're not popular or some other nonsense defence of the sh*t sandwich that is EP this year)

I'd like to naively think that maybe EP is missing the charm of POD Productions, and people don't want to deal with the corporate behemoth of Live Nation if they don't have to.

One thing is for sure, with all these good gigs being announced for summer, people will definitely have second thoughts about booking EP tickets so far in advance with no word of a line up.

I would consider this strike 2 for EP. Strike 1 was changing the security team. Anecdotally speaking I know a lot of people that didn't return after we found out the Scots were no longer being hired, but young (cheaper) scuts from Dublin replacing them.

Strike 3 will be if there's another line up like this next year I'd imagine.

Fanirish

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122176778#Comment_122176778

merely on a ticket sales perspective the likes of kodaline, kahan and Gerry cinnamon do the business. They might all be terrible musically but alot of people here in ireland like them. Cinnamon did malahide castle in 2022, kodaline did multiple nights in st Anne’s park and kahan has sold out 3 arena and 30,000 tickets for Belfast in no time this year. Calvin Harris day at longitude sold out as well.
someone is buying all these tickets to shows headlined by these individuals!
it might be anyone on this forum but someone is.

antfin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122176939#Comment_122176939

Incidentally, LCD/Idles/Young Father hasn't sold out despite being on sale for months now. Maybe it would have been better for all concerned to have them as an EP booking!

scruff monkey

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122176975#Comment_122176975

Surprised at that but Idles / Young Fathers are relatively niche in terms of audience here and LCD would very much skew 35+ demographic and there's a lot of competing choice this summer.

Reded

A sign of things to possibly come!!!

antfin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122177075#Comment_122177075

Yep, there's almost too many stand alone gigs competing for a limited audience this summer. You'd have to wonder whether some of them would have been better off taking up festival slots. Arcade Fire's gig is also not sold out yet either, in fact I think all of the gigs in Malahide have yet to sell out this summer.

scruff monkey

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122177105#Comment_122177105

Have not been to a gig there but I'm assuming compared to other locations that it's a pain in the hole to get to and from?

Instantly marks a gig as a no no for me, esp a mid week one.

rubick

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122177116#Comment_122177116

We went to Depeche Mode last year. Shuttle bus e/w from the Custom House in Dublin. Only found out later that there was a direct bus from Belfast ffs. It's a lovely venue to be fair, but yeah, not handy. Bit of a hike through the park to get to the stage but it's a nice setting.

Mucker46

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122177116#Comment_122177116

Been to a few gigs there. Dart drops you very close and bus back to city centre afterwards. So grand if dublin is your start and end point

Fanirish

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122176939#Comment_122176939

lcd could very easily be offered the choice of either malahide show or sub headliner to Calvin Harris at EP and went with own headline show instead.
All promoters can do is offer them choices and they decide what they prefer

endainoz

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122176975#Comment_122176975

Yeah the gig market is so saturated this year, particularly that time of year in Dublin. The usual story of promoters being greedy I guess.

endainoz

You have no idea if they were offered anything or not. Stop changing the narrative.

rubick

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122177323#Comment_122177323

I've never seen someone so willing to offer their services as a spin doctor, seemingly for free.

Flaneur OBrien

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122177352#Comment_122177352

"Seemingly" is doing a lot of work there. I just smell a shill. Look at their posting history. Doesn't venture out of the one forum, which I always find peculiar.

Maybe it is just hopeless devotion to EP, but I just don't see it.

Flaneur OBrien

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122177295#Comment_122177295

LCD and Arcade Fire would have been far better co-headliners than Harris and Kahan (Jesus, Kahan is god awful as a headliner! There's no energy there at all!) especially given the 20 year anniversary, and the history of the two of them playing 2 of the top 10 sets in EP history.

Seathrun66

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122177075#Comment_122177075

Idles have sold out two nights at the Olympia in November despite being on the LCD bill. Could easily do one or two more. Young Fathers have less appeal but still sold out the Olympus last March and drew a good EP crowd despite clashing with Viagra Boys and some other decent act I can’t recall.

LCD undoubtedly have a greater appeal with an older crowd but no one would question them being an EP headliner in 2024. They’re sub-headlining at Glasto and will draw a diverse crowd. Take a look on TV at the front rows for that gig, there’ll be lots of kids singing along to All My Friends.

Like you I’m very surprised there are still tickets, but maybe a saturated Summer will mean losses for promoters on quite a few events.

Fanirish

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122177388#Comment_122177388

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122177388#Comment_122177388

no devotion to EP, it is was it is now. Enjoyed going to it before Festival Republic took over the booking properly. Drop in the odd year for a day if friends playing it.
EP is not a festival designed for the tastes of people on this forum and they book acts that are very popular in ireland. That’s it.
Sometimes the acts align to the tastes of people on here and sometimes like evidently this year they don’t.
I just counter some people belief on here that EP promoters can click their fingers and internationally successful artists that they like will drop everything and run to play stradbally.

TenPicnics

Maybe those who put their faith in EP and bought tickets for that back in autumn '23 simply can't afford to go to the individual gigs, once you factor in the cost of EP's 3-4 days & nights? Once upon a golden time - not that long ago - you could be fairly sure/certain of some of those acts that are now doing individual day gigs being at EP.

In the make-believe world where LCD were offered sub status to Calvin Harris, I can imagine James Murphy's response.

Seathrun66

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122177116#Comment_122177116

Getting away from Malahide a ballache. After Radiohead we were very lucky to get the last DART, completely rammed and we weren’t slow to leave the gig. Massive queues after The Cure and not a great place to have to pay for a taxi from if stuck there. I generally avoid the place but LCD/IDLES/YFs too good to miss.

Jaffa3000

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122177105#Comment_122177105

Likewise 3/4 Marlay shows are not sold out. Some combination of acts being overbooked and tickets being too expensive

scruff monkey

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122177425#Comment_122177425

2 nights in Olympia is about what i would have pegged them at, that's 1/5th of a point depot, so popular but not that popular.

Seathrun66

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122177606#Comment_122177606

Could easily have done two more nights at the Olympia, tickets disappeared quickly even with the outdoor event in June.

Last non-festival visits were in 2019 where they sold out both Vicar St and the Iveagh Gardens. Bigger now (two UK number 1 albums since including the last release three months ago) and the Olympia a small venue for them. They’re nowhere near full 3Arena level but at best guess they’d sell 5k/6k here.

Fanirish

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122178065#Comment_122178065

3 nights in vicar were cancelled in 2022 and night in Kilmainham was cancelled due to bad ticket sales. Still at about 4500-5000 ish level here. So real increase in fans since they blew up in 2019. Last two albums haven’t exactly pushed them upward.