2026 Irish Gigs (Confirmed & Rumoured Events)

I don't understand this argument. It's 3 times the size of of ATN and sells out instantly. In what way could it lose out?

Just saw the Loyle Carner gig in National stadium. Dunno is it that common for artists to play gigs around EP. Wonder will it sell well with many at EP that weekend.

Anyone heard anything about this?

When you actually compare lineups, you can see why people get annoyed with Electric Picnic.

Mad Cool Festival is roughly €280 for four days. EP is similar money for three. That alone raises questions before you even look at the posters.

Mad Cool announced the lineup early, split the days properly, reduced capacity, and put together a bill with a bit for everyone. It looks like something designed to win people over.

Meanwhile EP too often feels like: buy now, trust us later. Blind faith as a business model. The initial announcement this year was decent, then the rest of it felt like whatever happened to be available once the stronger options were gone elsewhere.

EP has the brand, the demand, the capacity and the money coming in up front, yet still manages to produce lineups that rarely feel essential. At some point people are entitled to ask what exactly they’re paying premium prices for.

mad cool is a city festival with 4 stages targeted to a day ticket audience. From all perspectives it’s a completely different experience and beast to EP.
electric picnic is a 30 or 40 stage town set up in some fields in the midlands.
from a line up perspective a city non camping festival can afford the likes of foo fighters etc as it’s a top heavy festival that has low costs in comparison to a camping festival.

Look up the EP financials, it’s not the supposed cash cow that you seem to think it is. In last few years it makes a €1.5m to 2m profit a year on €30m plus revenue and after losing millions in its initial decade of existence.

from a look at late august line ups, they got a solid lineup tbh.

People can jump through as many hoops to explain it they like, it's bad value for money with the lineup that's been announced.

You could pick out 20 or more festivals all around Europe than are cheeper and have superior lineups.

Exactly. All the caveats like 'city festival' or 'sponsorship' are meaningless when you actually look into it and see that EP have loads of sponsors, many identical to other European festivals, and if you are in early with a booking for accomodation on the dates prior to announcement or just after the announcement of the lineup, many of these festivals still work out cheaper overall than EP, or slightly more but justifiable in the far superior lineups.

EP is a grand festival, I go most years as it is close by and I enjoy it for what it is, bonus if you get a good year like 2019, 2022 or last year in ways even, but even then overall it isn't a patch on Primavera, Mad Cool, Nos Alive, Rock en Seine, Rock Werchter, Pinkpop, Pukkelpop, Roskilde, InMusic, the list goes on and on.

It would be interesting to see if Electric picnic tickets would sell out as quick, if the line-up was out before the dates tickets go on sale…also some are saying a 6th headliner for EP will be added, any truth to that ??

Am I losing the plot here or is this some elite-level gaslighting?

I’m going again this year, and in fairness, last year actually earned it. The headliners alone justified the ticket, you’re talking €80–€100 acts if they played the 3Arena individually, the depth across the smaller stages meant you were never stuck for something worth seeing. It felt curated. It felt like a festival.

This year? It genuinely reads like:

“Give me the safest possible algorithm-friendly lineup, tick a few trending boxes, great for the gram, offend absolutely nobody, excite even fewer, and still charge AAA festival prices.”

It’s not even that the acts are bad, it’s that it’s painfully middle of the road I'm being generous. No risk, no edge, no identity. A “social media lineup” designed to look good on a poster rather than actually hit in a field across a weekend.

It’s completely fair to compare it to European festivals. This is supposed to be the biggest festival in the country, the standard should reflect that were all camping there it's not like we need massive public transport were all stationary for the weekend. I shouldn’t be buying a ticket and then squinting at the lineup trying to convince myself there’s enough there to justify it. The lineup should be dragging me from stage to stage, I shouldn't be trying to find an act or have to sit through one for the sake of it,

Let’s call it what it is financially as well. Roughly 80k tickets at ~€300, that’s in the ballpark of €24–25 million before you even touch camping upgrades, VIP packages, food, drink (they take huge cuts), or sponsorships. And this is the return on that? We've every right to question it,

It just feels like: “Grand, tickets are sold, money’s secured, how do we deliver something just above the threshold of taking the piss while keeping margins as fat as possible?”

There’s a difference between a diverse lineup and a directionless one. This leans heavily toward the latter, look at the comments on the lineup....

I think some of the replies are still missing the actual point. Nobody is saying Electric Picnic and Mad Cool Festival are identical experiences. Obviously one has woods, campsites, side areas and the rest. Congratulations to everyone for solving that mystery.

The point is value and ambition. I’ve been to Best Kept Secret, which is a camping festival, less than half the capacity of EP, and by choice they’ve kept it smaller rather than cramming every last body in. Yet for similar money it can still produce a lineup like that poster. So the “camping festival costs” excuse only stretches so far.

At some stage every criticism of EP gets met with another guided tour of the woods, the Salty Dog and a spoken-word tribute to Trailer Park. Lovely stuff, but none of that means the music booking has to coast. Atmosphere and lineup are allowed to coexist. Europe has somehow managed this breakthrough.

And the “city festivals are easier” line is getting tired. Plenty of European festivals, camping and non-camping, operate in competitive markets, have rivals nearby, and still manage to look sharper, fresher and more responsive than the default option here. Funny how competition does that.

We constantly hear about expansion, bigger capacity, growth and how in demand it all is, yet somehow that increased scale rarely seems to translate into lineups with the same ambition. More bodies through the gate, more revenue generated, but not much visible reinvestment where punters can actually see it: on the poster. Funny how that works.

If people are happy paying premium prices for nostalgia about Trenchtown, a stroll through the woods and the privilege of calling it “an experience” while the music offer slides, that’s entirely their choice. Others are perfectly entitled to notice that the same money elsewhere often buys stronger bookings, sharper curation and a promoter trying to impress rather than cash in because they've got the money in without announcing a lineup.

For the metalheads

I'm really sick of this "intern" BS. It wasn't funny the first time and its not funny the millionth time. Personally i'd love to see the offender thread banned, its bullying at this stage.