Electric Picnic organisers tell Government to return from holidays and issue guidelines

They are not happy.

The organisers of Electric Picnic have called on the government to interrupt its summer recess and immediately issue reopening guidelines for the music and entertainment sector. It comes as Laois County Council on Wednesday refused to grant the festival a licence, stating the decision had been made "following the most up to date public health advice". Organisers said they "are extremely disappointed" at the decision of the council and cited the steps they had offered to run the festival safely, including mandatory full vaccinations for all attendees and artists, as well as preregistering details to allow for contact tracing. The festival had been scheduled to take place in late September but will now be postponed for at least another year. Anyone who has tickets for this year's event will be contacted directly by organisers in the next week. "This is a huge blow and set back to our entire sector, which was mandated to close on the 12 March 2020 (over 500 days ago) and such a decision now means the further loss of employment for over 3,000 people, who had clung to the hope that Electric Picnic would bring an end to their period of hardship," organisers said in a statement. "We now call upon all members of government to interrupt their summer recess and immediately issue reopening guidelines, as we have being calling for, with a reopening date for the sector of the 16 August on a phased basis, building to the implementation of no restrictions from 1 September 2021 onwards. "We wish to thank all the fans for their patience and the community of Stradbally and the people of Laois for their huge ongoing support during this difficult time. "We will now review our options and be in contact directly with all ticket holders over the next week."