Electric Picnic organisers have said that the line-up for this year’s festival will be announced this Friday, April 26.
The update was posted on social media this afternoon after weeks of idle speculation as to what has been causing the delay.
Last year’s main announcement was made in December – with further acts announced on April 21. In previous years the main announcement regarding acts was on average on March 11.
This year’s festival is two weeks earlier – on August 16-18 – meaning that the announcement is considerably later than ever.
When speaking about the change of date at last year’s festival, organiser Melvin Benn said it was to accommodate a specific act.
“Next year is a one off,” said Benn in reference to the date, though he did add that the capacity is set to increase by 5,000 to bring it up to 75,000.
“The specific artist that we wanted for the Picnic and their availability is that weekend and we were like, ‘let’s see what it’s like, let’s explore it’.”
Speaking at the launch of last year’s festival in Stradbally, Benn said that move to the earlier date wasn’t motivated by the fact that Coldplay are playing in Croke Park on the same weekend as the traditional Electric Picnic slot.
“No it is not about that actually. It is something (the earlier date) that we have been giving consideration to for quite some time actually.
“We want to see how it plays out. See how the booking of talent, the weather, etc, etc all plays out.”
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