Planning for Electric Picnic 2021 is underway, says organiser

The 'rona may have put paid to our festival-going this year, but don't throw out your glitter, camp chair or bag of warm cans for good.

Planning has started for Electric Picnic 2021, its organiser has said. The festival, which was due to take place this weekend, was cancelled because of the coronavirus outbreak. It would have been the 17th year of what's grown to become Ireland's biggest music and arts event. Festival boss Melvin Benn has said that he is confident we'll be back in Stradbally this time next year. "We're beginning that planning for 2021 now and talking to different acts about their availability and touring plans," he told 2FM. This year's Electric Picnic was set to be headlined by Rage Against The Machine and Lewis Capaldi but don't expect to see them on the bill in 2021. "We genuinely cancelled all of the artists and started afresh for 2021," Benn, who runs Festival Republic, said. "It’s the same for all my festivals. We didn’t try to reproduce in 2021 what was 2020. "There’s bound to be some crossover, but we genuinely cancelled all the artists and started afresh for 2021 and that’s where we are now. It’s a clean sheet of paper." Benn is also organising next year's Reading and Leeds festival in the UK and last week said that they would be testing all attendees for coronavirus. "We don’t need a vaccination because we can work through the problem with a really good testing regime," he told NME.