Electric Picnic 2016 // **Discussion Only / NO Ticket Sales / Requests** //

Was driving through Stradbally yesterday and stopped for a coffee and went for a walk down towards the production/performers entrance off the main street.

You forget sometimes what lovely countryside there is around that part of Laois and what an amazing "front garden" the Cosby's have in Stradbally Hall.

The photo is looking up towards the main stage and body and soul in the very background. The friendly security wouldn't let me walk any further but told me that they had planned to be completed and gone from the site by last night (Sunday).

andreac wrote: »

For anyone that stayed in accommodation offsite, hotel etc, which one would you recommend? Which hotel would be the easiest to get to from there?
We did Podpads this year but not sure we can handle camping again. Will get tickets anyway and go from there. Maybe there is a B & B in Stradbally or something that we could stay in either?

Thanks :-)

Try AirBnB - we stayed in a lovely little cottage in 2014 about 10 mins away. Think it was about €170 for the weekend (3 of us sharing). Basic but grand.

andreac wrote: »

Brilliant, might suss that out. It's more that we have a decent bed to go back to and proper showers etc. I don't mind camping but i was completely exhausted come sun morn and couldn't last until the end, and himself didn't enjoy the camping one bit lol.

Ah I can understand that - staying off site isnt for me personally (I feel I miss out a bit) but I know himself would way prefer a B&B/ hotel too. I cant link you as I didnt book the one we stayed in but you'll usually get a pretty good deal on there.

I agree on the security but I found the traffic management terrible. It seemed to be diverted down more small side roads than usual and we were backed up nearly all the way out to the motorway. You may have just arrived at a lucky time. At lunch time it was crazy.

andreac wrote: »

Got a price for 3 nights off the Killeshin, €660. Not too bad really. we paid €610 roughly for the 4 man Bellepad between 4 of us. They want payment upfront at time of booking though. Will wait and see how things go over the next few months before booking anything.

i haven't camped since 2012. hotels and b+b in 2012, 2014, 2015 and 2016

complete BS that hotels are booked out a year in advance. this year alone, i booked a hotel for Sunday night on the Friday! both the Maldron Portlaoise and Heritage Hotel both had rooms

2012 - stayed in b&b in carlow. can't rem price but got a long 30 min taxi every night. wasn't great, i always feel like you're staying in someones house in a b&b
2014 - Maldron Portlaoise. bones of €700 for 3 nights. taxi to site and back was about 10 minutes, but then you've long walk in
2015 - hotel in Portloaise
2016 - Maldron again. Sunday night for €139

i never understood these podpads, for the price you pay you can get a hotel. though I understand people like being on site all weekend. i might do pinkmoon next year.


hotel availability changes ALL year. it'd be madness to book now. i'm really giving away my edge here but... input all the hotels on hotelroomalerts.com and you get emails when rooms become available at better prices.

Roscoe P Coltrane wrote: »

Liking the rteco clip Niall, not like you to be using multi-camera format, stage access & rte branding in the top corner...your usual approach of middle of the crowd & now famous absinthe stagger is so much more of an EP experience- and what we all truly remember from the weekend!!
As always, your blog was brilliant (always chuffed to get a mention!) It was great to catch up with you at the festival and on a dinal note, I made it to the caravan for your mad jam session that night with mandolin/mini guitar guy (cant remember his name at the mo) and it was the highlight of setup for me. Rock on EP 2017!

Twas a gas Roscoe P Coltrane to meet up with ya, Fergus Costello is the name of that dude. :)

Great write up and videos bodhrandude! Some gigs there that I'm raging I didn't get to go to. The pre-festival week sounds like it's great craic on site in stradbally, must be a tough slog staying down there for the full week!

Got an email off pink moon today asking to fill out a feedback survey, only thing I would really say was that I hope they could arrange for some kind of car park next year or else arrange it so that ticket holders for PM can have access to the green car park. The walk from the red car park up to the very back of the pink moon (against all of the foot traffic coming the other way) nearly killed me!

H8GHOTI wrote: »

Ya the app is handy that way, they can make last minute changes to it.

Don't know why RTE only showed one song when they probably have the whole thing recorded. They chatted to Gavin James for about 15 f***ing mins.

Yeah found Gavin James to be super annoying on that but was scared to fast forward the player in case I triggered ads again.

Northernsoul wrote: »

This. THIS!
I left 2 songs in, during Robert Miles Children, as I couldn't see any of the orchestra playing an actual instrument & it sounded exactly, EXACTLY, as if someone has pressed play on a CD.

The orchestra was obviously playing their instruments, but I'd be intrigued as to what exactly Jenny Greene's input was? After she pressed play for the backing beat, what else could she have been doing other than some serious knob twiddling.

Dtp1979 wrote: »

Busy taking credit?

BaZmO* wrote: »

The orchestra was obviously playing their instruments, but I'd be intrigued as to what exactly Jenny Greene's input was? After she pressed play for the backing beat, what else could she have been doing other than some serious knob twiddling.

Myself and the husband were wondering the same. Presumed she had picked the set list? (and that was it?)

Massive amount of credit for choosing a load of really sh1te songs to be fair..

It had potential to be brilliant.