2026 Irish Gigs (Confirmed & Rumoured Events)

Ah good ol ep playing the same trick on punters for 5 years now!

ATN isn't great this year either tbh outside of quite a specific niche so I think EP is safe or level anyway

Festival Republic laughing all the way to the bank.

Whatever about whether you like the line-up or not as it is subjective at the end of the day, selling all the tickets before even a single act is known is a fairly mad state of affairs. It works for them but still mad.

I think somehow everyone is right here.

This line up is not great. Especially when you compare to line ups form back in the day. The last few years have been nothing short of a farce.

However, when you compare this year to those other sh*te years, there are some pretty decent acts on the bill this year.

Not as good as it should be, but better than it was expected to be.

With you here, but its a sorry state of affairs when its collectively poor for so long that we're at the stage of "better than it was expected to be" 🙃

That, and its profit driven scalping of the tickets + sponsors + % of traders income. The sums don't add up to a fair investment in the artists for the consumer. (yes, fully aware of logistical costs for infrastructure.) The sums still don't add up.

This coming from someone that goes to festivals for the experience and discovery. It'll be a alright festival, just not great? 💁‍♂️

(edit for spelling)

EP always delivers for intended audience of primarily 20 - early 30 years olds who wanna see mainstream popular artists.

Speaking from the perspective of someone in their early 20s and is fairly clued in with almost every act on that lineup (not to sound too far up my own hole here, apologies):

It’s fairly good. The bookings are a lot more savvy than what we’ve previously seen (see 2024) and they’re getting better at appealing to the younger audiences by taking a leaf out of ATN’s book.

There’s 10 acts there that would sell out the 3Arena (some of them multiple times over) without breaking a sweat, and another 3 or 4 that could sell out the downsized/closed upper level version.

The last couple of levels are quality, Gurriers, Florence Road, Bleech 9:3 and Madra Salach are acts we’ll look back on in a few years and wonder how on earth they were that low on the poster.

There’s not a whole lot for the house/techno bunch. Ben Hemsley, Duke Dumont and Obskür are nice but Terminus is seriously bare bones this year.

On the whole, the initial announcement was super promising and this has fallen a little bit flat with the context of them moving up acts that weren’t initially billed as headliners (yes, Sombr being the main Friday headliner is a stinker), but with another few acts thrown into the mix closer to the time it’s worth the price this year, even if you don’t recognise every name on first glance.

30 seconds to mars. do they have fans? do 3arena shows sell out? it's a weird one

Geese are dreadful I've never been so disappointed by an act I'd seen hyped so much previously.

Glastonbury delivers for everyone. They are simply not equivalent. EP often doesn't deliver for the 20-30 demographic, only to a part of it.

In 3Arena terms,

Would sell it out (10):

• All 5 headliners for multiple nights
• Djo
• Duke Dumont (two nights)
• Role Model
• Loyle Carner (was playing it but had to cancel)
• The Mary Wallopers (going off them doing the SSE in Belfast)

Would sell it out closed off (4):

• Wunderhorse
• Wolf Alice
• Ben Hemsley
• Skepta

If you're really trying to reach, you could say Geese might be able to sell it closed off by the time EP rolls around but all of those above would be able to safely shift tickets.

Djo did the olympia only recently, role model didn't come here but toured theatres in the UK, Loyle Carner cancelled BECAUSE of low ticket sales and this was consistent across his tour. The Mary Wallopers took ages to sell Fairview out. Duke Dumont might play it but unlikely to sell out one nvm two.

I agree wunderhorse and Hemsley could sell out a reduced size one but it is hard to know with Skepta given he rarely comes here and that in itself skews popularity. You have listed wolf alice twice who again only recently showed they couldn't sell out the reduced size one. Scraping bottom of the barrel a bit to justify these as arena level acts when many of then haven't even shown they are able to play it let alone sell it out, and the 3arena full sized is small (13,000), the reduced is 7000-8000 which makes it more akin to a midsized venue, therefore you can't really treat selling out the reduced capacity as being in the same territory.

EDIT: Just saw that Loyle Carner announced he was playing the national stadium so thay really shows he is nowhere near arena.