Electric Picnic organisers call for festival to be allowed to go ahead exclusively for vaccinated people

They listed 12 reasons why it should be permitted to go ahead.

MCD Productions has called for Electric Picnic to be allowed to go ahead exclusively for vaccinated people. The Irish promotion company shared twelve reasons on Tuesday why they believe the festival should be permitted as the live music sector in Ireland has now been closed for over 500 days. Last week MCD and Festival Republic wrote to the Taoiseach and other members of Government to propose the list of advanced safety measures which would allow the event to take place. It comes as Managing Director of Festival Republic, which runs the Electric Picnic festival, Melvin Benn, said on Monday that the festival in Stradbally in Laois will be going ahead this year. Speaking on RTÉ's News at One, Benn said he is "100% fully expecting the Electric Picnic to be going ahead on the basis (that) 100% nobody has told me I won't be able to". "I'm investing, and all of the teams are investing in the effort to try and make sure that the Picnic can happen by presuming that we are going ahead and I'm saying presuming that we are going ahead, because let's be 100% clear here, nobody's told me I can't go ahead," he said. He said that he expects that 70,000 people will attend provided they have been fully vaccinated or recovered from the virus in the last six months. Over 90% of the tickets are already sold as the festival tickets went on sale in March 2020 for last year's cancelled event, however, the remaining tickets are set to go on sale at the end of the month after the line-up is released. Their 12 reasons why Electric Picnic should be permitted to go ahead are as follows:

• Electric Picnic will be restricted to individuals who are fully vaccinated 14 days prior to event.
• There will be no entry permitted to those who are not fully vaccinated.
• Advance registration for Department of Health contact tracing.
• Approved Event Management Plan implementing extensive health and safety requirements.
• The above-proposed measures would be even more restrictive than the current regulations applicable to indoor hospitality; the rules governing international travel; large sporting events currently being organised by the GAA, IRFU and the FAI with up to 40,000 attendees.
• 3 million adults will be double vaccinated by early September, according to the HSE. As of this week, there are more people vaccinated in Ireland than the UK, yet in Ireland, we are not permitted to produce events.
• There has been no evidence produced to date showing that any of the Government of Ireland supported music pilot events held last June, or the many recent international events including the British Grand Prix (140,000 spectators 70% of whom camped for 3 days), last week’s UK Latitude music festival (40,000 per day across 3 days) along with the thousands of live arena shows taking place around the world, have resulted in any spike or direct increase in covid numbers.
• TRNSMT Scotland is going ahead from 10th – 12th September 2021. Scotland previously imposed more stringent conditions than Ireland.
• From next week onwards, thousands of music fans from the Republic of Ireland will cross the border to attend live music concerts taking place in Belfast’s Custom House Square (without restrictions) featuring artists such as Tom Jones, James Arthur, Kodaline, Fontaines DC, Nile Rodgers & Chic, Scooter, etc.
• The industry is about to lose yet another full summer, something no other sector has suffered. The whole sector and that of the livelihood of 35,000 people employed have been totally and disproportionately impacted above all other sectors by this pandemic.
• The Government have highlighted that the “live entertainment and music sectors are in danger of collapse” and a clear plan for their return is needed.
• Over 500 days closed, our sector was the first to close and we are still fully closed.