AT 7AM yesterday morning, I was losing the will to go on. A very drunk and very tone-deaf man in a tent near mine had been singing You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin',over and over again for the best part of three hours. Sometimes he would pause for up to 10 minutes – or just long enough for me to fall into a fitful sleep – before bursting into song again.
In another nearby tent, a couple were rowing furiously. A weird thing about festival camping is that campers, frequently very drunk campers, forget that their tents offer nothing by way of privacy, so they row – or indeed have sex, but probably not at the same time – as if they were home alone.
This particular barney culminated in the man shouting: “I saw you run off with that fella in the kaftan,” to his less-than-contrite girlfriend. Electric Picnic is a kaftan kind of place.
And this is supposed to be posh camping. Each year The Irish Timessends a team down to the Electric Picnic to produce a daily, bite-sized edition of our Friday entertainment supplement The Ticket for festival-goers. Normally the crew stay in a hotel nearby, with beds, hot water and the like.
This is clearly cheating, but it is where I assumed I would be staying.
At the last minute, the Ticket editor decided it would be a wheeze if I camped, in order to, you know, savour the real festival experience. It is more than 20 years since I slept in a tent, so I wasn’t thrilled, but I was so desperate to go to the Picnic – it was my very first time – that I agreed.
She allowed me to spend more than €200 on a pitch in what is known as the Tangerine Fields. For this hefty sum, I got my tent put up by magic elves, an air bed and a sleeping bag. And I was promised a better class of showers and toilet facilities.
Now, while these might well have been better than what was on offer in regular campsites, that does not make them good. The toilets were hazardous from the start, the showers were not much better, and the queues to get into them were massive.
CAMPING ASIDE, everything else about the weekend was spot on. Even the weather obliged by staying gloriously sunny on Friday, mostly dry on Saturday and sunny for the opening part of yesterday, although at the time of writing, storm clouds were gathering.
“Amazing” was the word I kept hearing in the run-up to the festival. So many veterans were raving about it and building it up in my head that I was fully prepared to be mightily disappointed when Friday came.
I wasn’t. Arriving at the enormous site in glorious sunshine, with all the marquees and food stalls and bars and flags billowing in the wind was absolutely amazing. There is no other word for it.
The history of Electric Picnic mirrors the evolution of Ireland’s “middle youth”. Many people in their 20s and beyond have lost interest in schlepping around muddy fields eating vile hotdogs and under-cooked burgers at over-the-odds prices and watching in dismay as teenagers unable to hold their Buckfast pee on their tents before setting them on fire, for laughs. But they still want to see good music played live and hear top DJs play late into the night And this is where Electric Picnic comes in.
“Oh look! A fish hanging from a tree – I love that stuff,” a person close to me says with some excitement as she sees one of the many random tree decorations dotted around the site. Me too. And the very fact that someone thought to hang pink fish from a tree for no reason is one of the things that makes the festival so good. There’s barely a tree left undecorated here, and much kudos must go to the organisers, Pod, for putting in so much effort to retain the festival’s boutique feel despite its growth in recent years.
Liz Mulhall certainly thinks it is great. She and her dog Daisy – dressed in a T-shirt emblazoned with the words Rock Star – is from Stradbally. She’s been to every one so far. “The music and the atmosphere are brilliant,” she says. “It’s a great weekend. All the different foods and the events. It’s wonderful.”
She probably gets free tickets, what with being a local and all? “What, are you joking? No, we pay full price.”
Carly McQuaid from Belfast was wearing entirely inappropriate pink wellies on Friday, despite the blistering sunshine. “I obviously got it wrong,” she said, “but the wellies won’t stop me dancing.”
What with all the sun, a hat was in order, so I went to a stall called Cover Your Bits, where the seller – let’s call him Damian – tried to charge me €15 for a ridiculous straw affair. I raised a sceptical eyebrow and he told me “it’s a bit too early for haggling”, before he immediately started haggling. I only had €12.10 on me so he accepted that. Moments later, feeling mightily chuffed with my bargaining skills, I walked past a stall selling almost identical hats for €6 or two for a tenner. Damn it.
ELECTRIC PICNICis not without its flaws, and a lot of punters complained about a lack of organisation and an absence of stewards who knew what was what and more importantly where was where.
There were stalls that were definitely ripping punters off (one was selling cups – empty cups – for 50 cent), but with well over 100 food stalls, competition has meant prices have not spiralled out of control to a ridiculous level.
And, what with it being a boutique festival, some of the fare on offer is astonishingly good. The ostrich burgers for €7.50 were legendary, the chilli burrito from the Flaming Cactus was awesome, but the top prize, at least in my view, goes to the €7 poached salmon and potato salad from Rathmullan House, which was excellent and great value for money.
While the Picnic can drain your resources and certainly drains your energy levels, it is, as all veterans assured me, an absolutely amazing event. And I’ll be back. I might even carry on camping.
Pricewatch at the Picnic
Conor Pope's expenses claim
Tent: €220
Okay, I didn’t actually get a tent for this, I just rented one, but I also got an air bed and two sleeping bags. A pillow would have been nice, mind you.
Beer (cans of): €60
How can I resist an official online offie selling beer at €2.50? It’s only after I buy it that I realise I can’t bring it into the arena, so unless I want to drink alone in my tent, this money’s been wasted.
Food and drink: €350 (approx – they wouldn’t give me any receipts – honest)
Breakfast rolls x 3; pies x 3; burgers x 8; chunky chips x 2; pints x 15; coffees x 9; vodka jelly shots x 4; pizza x 3; ice creams x 6; vodka jelly shots again x 4; Water x 12.
Miner’s headlamp: €40
Practical and fashionable – what’s not to love about this. Portaloos in the dark can be a scary place, and not somewhere you want to drop your hand-held torch.
Sun hat/rain poncho/wellies/flip flops: €120
The weather was all over the shop, so I had to prepare for all conditions – just be grateful I didn’t hire a Sherpa to carry all the kit.
Personal hygiene products: €40
That dry shampoo is very expensive, so it is.
Official Picnic lanyard timetable: €12
It looks like a VIP laminate, which made me feel like a VIP for, oh, 15 seconds.
Souvenir T-shirts and merchandise:€50
Wheelbarrow to lug stuff:€10
If only you’d let me stay in the hotel.
On-site gig lockers:€15
Again, if you’d let me stay in the hotel.
TOTAL:€922
