Credit to mooeamon on the Electric Picnic forum for that one.

EP fever slowly taking a hold

Here we’ve rounded up as many ticket giveaway competitions  tickets as we can find, so if you haven’t got €240 spare maybe lady luck will be on your side. Get entering!

* Updated with some new giveaways *

Drinkaware Weekly Giveaway
Every Friday between now and August 27th, Drinkaware will be giving away a pair of Electric Picnic tickets.

ESB Picnic Power
20 pairs  of tickets up for grabs on their festival website.

Heineken Music
A pair of tickets to giveaway every Friday.

Myhome.ie ‘like’ Competition

Hotpress / Myhome.ie

Phantom

Entertainment.ie Tickets & Pampering

Entertainment.ie Tent

Pigsback.com / Drinkaware.ie

Watch this space for updates – I’ll add new competitions to this list as I find them. Also stay tuned to the radio – there’s loads of giveaways being broadcast that I can’t link to from here!

Phil Selway’s debut solo album Familal is out this August and the Radiohead drummer will showcase his new material with a European tour that kicks off at this year’s Electric Picnic.

The first track By Some Miracle is now available for download from his site here.

Roxy Music, Leftfield, Massive Attack, LCD Soundsystem, The Frames, Public Image Ltd, The National, Imedla May, Mumford & Sons, Seasick Steve, Modest Mouse, Hot Chip, Gil Scott-Heron, Fever Ray, Jonsi (Sigur Ros); Fat Freddy’s Drop, Bad Lieutenant, Crystal Castles, Afro Celt Soundsystem, Booka Shade, Bloody Beetroots Death Crew 77, Steve Earle, The Waterboys, Beach House, The Big Pink, 808 State, The Low Anthem, Redneck Manifesto, The Horrors, Monotonix, Liquid Liquid, Here We Go Magic, Field Music, Steve Mason, Cymanide, The Alarm, Messiah J & The Eexpert, Dublin Gospel Choir, Caribou, Adrian Crowley, Villagers; New Pornographers, Edan, Breakestra & Chali 2 Na, Mr Scruff, Memory Tapes, and more to be announced…

It makes for an impressive, if unsurprising bunch of acts – lots of EP regulars returning for the annual Stradbally event; though we’re more than happy to see Fever Ray and LCD Soundsystem in there!

Bestival 2010 (The Isle of Wight festival which is on a week before EP) has come out with its first line up announcement. Given how close Bestival and EP are in terms of location/date, Bestival is worth keeping an eye on for the acts that could be visiting Stradbally this summer.

Last year the two festivals shared the likes of MGMT, Fleet Foxes, Bat For Lashes (even though she was a no show at EP),  2manydjs, Florence and the Machine, Passion Pit and more. As always though, this is speculation – plenty of acts announced for Bestival 2009 did not make the EP billing.

Bestival have announced the following acts for the Isle of Wight this summer:

Dizzee Rascal / The Flaming Lips / Hot Chip / LCD Soundsystem / Gil Scott Heron / Chase & Status / Echo and the Bunnymen / Simian Mobile Disco / Delphic / Rolf Harris / Marc Almond / dan le sac Vs Scroobius Pip / Ellie Goulding / Fat Freddy’s Drop / Flying Lotus / Four Tet / Kitty Daisy & Lewis / Stornoway / Tinie Tempah / Vitalic / The Cuban Brothers / Chilly Gonzales / Beardyman / Tunng / Hurts / Nathan Fake / The Gaslamp Killer / The Vegetable Orchestra / Ulrich Schnauss / The Twinkle Brothers / High Llamas / The Antlers / Archie Bronson Outfit / Beth Jeans Houghton / Mixhell / Glen Matlock / Samuel and the Dragon / The Japanese Popstars / The Lost Brothers / Hear We Go Magic / Goldhawks  / Countryside Alliance Crew / Laura J Martin / A Genuine Freakshow / Bookhouse Boys /  King Charles / Three Trapped Tigers / Worship / French Horn Rebellion / Sisters of Transistors / Spindle and Wit / Starless & Bible Black / The Boy Who Trapped The Sun / Telegraphs / Tim and Sam Band / Unicorn Kid

If you’re determined to attend this year but are finding the €240 price-tag a little limiting, why not try your luck with these:

Electric Picnic Forum
Electric Picnic Myspace
Heineken Music on Facebook
WarChild
Hotpress
Entertainment.ie
Entertainment.ie / Bacardi
Bacardi Facebook
Tower Records
Festival Annual
RTE 2fm / Nokia
Bootcamp Ireland
Pigsback.com
O2 Blue Room
Day & Night Magazine

Subject: europe confusion

Body: hello,

i just wanted to clear up some information about some shows that i am not playing but i am listed as playing. i will not be playing in europe in september. unfortunately, some of the possible shows got listed as confirmed and advertised. this has resulted in a major bummer as i cannot make these shows. i hope to make it back to europe again soon, but i do not know when that is. my apologies to everyone who was looking forward these fictional shows. this time, it honestly wasn’t my f*ck up.

dan

An article on the BBC last year suggested a link up between Bestival and a series of other events such as Electric Picnic. While at this moment it is purely speculative, the net is now buzzing with theories that a similar line-up will be announced for Stradbally.

Last year saw a speculative list circulate, (which I’m willing to admit I was duped by) with less than a quarter of the acts on it actually playing the Picnic, which goes to show the old saying by screenwriter William Goldman: nobody knows anything. The odd act will leak through trusted sources, but until we get that official line-up, we know nothing. The rumour mill is masochistic fun, however and hear say (who are reforming for CastlePalooza, a homeless drunk told me) will fly until then.

Regardless of who is playing, with Oxegen scoring major coups by securing acts like Blur and The Specials for Punchestown, the pressure is now on Electric Picnic to appease those who prefer a trip to Laois over MCD’s mammoth by announcing some acts soon…

Refreshingly organisers held their hands up to what they got wrong, apologising for the state of this year’s toilets.

“We do acknowledge that the toilets let us down this year and for this we apologise, this is an area that needs continued focus and improvement as the festival evolves, something we will do our best to address…the frills don’t mean anything if we’re not getting the basics right,” an email from promoters read.

So, will people be taking a calculated risk on the early prices? How much will punters save on a full price ticket? And are people happy to shell out when they haven’t a clue what the line up is?

Felt thoroughly hard done by this year. Behind the scenes was crazy. We had big plans for decor and making the ‘village thing work but they had to be scrapped at last minute. The location, whilst not physically going to kill you, was just too far away which effected people in more of a phychological way. The Oscar Wilde campsite where we were was the end of the line. it wasnt on the way to anything else, and the fact that there were no bars or food there meant that nobody was going to stay for any length of time or be there til at least 11 unless they really really wanted to see an act or unless they needed something from their tent, and thats exactly how it worked out. We didnt get busy every night until 11pm when the bars closed on the main site and people wanted to get their own drink and have a dance.

That the Bernard Shaw tent and Twisted Peper tent werent listed on the laminate that the bulk of the festival goers use to decide where they are going just baffles me too. So many people said to me they would have been front and centre if they had known Prins Thomas or Trusme or DJ Spinna or Ashley Beedle were playing. What a waste.

In the past being in the main site meant people could dip in and out of the tent all day with out troubling themselves, I think it was just too much of an ask this year.

I could go on, but overall like T says, we are quite disapointed considering how amazing its been in the last few years and how good it could have been this year. The rest of the festival – the decor, the ideas, the acts, the installations, Body & Soul – was superb and we were all quite disappointed at how it ended up for us.

said John Mahon of the Bodytonic crew, whilst fellow promoter Tayor said

our setup was rubbish – lets call a spade a spade . i thought we’d have a bar, food stalls, some cool decor and we’d nothing. if you went into the main site and then ours, it was no contest, we were fucked from Friday , we all knew it, just no-one wanted to admit it.

The bottom line is the buck stops with me on anything we do and I’m not gonna make 1 single excuse for it . It was crap and its my fault for letting it happen.

The distant/isolated location of the Bodytonic was a big minus for many over the weekend and for those who may not have gone for a whole set the ‘dip-in-ability’ of the dance set up was low because of it. Rumours abound on the interweb that organisers may have wanted to segreate the ’boutique’ crowd and the dance crew.

Thoughts?