RTÉ Two is delighted to announce that it will for the first time be televising the much-loved Electric Picnic music festival. Broadcasting from a special RTÉ Two Green Room at the Stradbally Hall Estate in Co Laois from late afternoon to late night on both Saturday 2 September and Sunday 3 Two Sounds: The Electric Picnic on RTÉ Two will bring a mixture of live and recorded footage and interviews with bands and festival-revellers to the sitting rooms of music fans who missed out on a ticket for the sold-out event.
Heading up over 8 hours of weekend coverage will be RTÉ Two’s Lucy Kennedy from The Ex-Files and The Podge & Rodge Show, Aidan Power from The Café, DJ Tom Dunne who has presented RTÉ Two’s Planet Rock Profiles and RTÉ 2FM DJ Jenny Huston who has featured as a contributor on I-D and The Café. ‘I’m festival fit, I’ve been in training for months! Whatever comes, hail, rain or shine, I’m ready for it!” said Jenny.
This is the third year of Ireland’s only boutique music festival, which is fast becoming a key fixture in the music enthusiast’s calendar. This year, the seven-stage line-up includes Pet Shop Boys, Massive Attack, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Damien Rice and PJ Harvey. All 30,000 tickets for the hugely-successful event were snapped up by mid-summer.
Kevin Linehan, Commissioning Editor for Entertainment, RTÉ Television, said: “I am thrilled that RTÉ Two and the Electric Picnic are joining forces to bring several hours of live music to many fans who would otherwise have missed out. RTÉ Two, in this instance, definitely means access all areas.”
“I am delighted that this is the first time ever that RTÉ Television is going to broadcast from a multi-stage music festival and that they chose the Electric Picnic. It is a great compliment to our festival which is only three years old,” said festival promoter John Reynolds.
Two Sounds: The Electric Picnic is being produced for RTÉ by South Wind Blows Productions.
And as a taster, next Wednesday night RTÉ Two will be showing the acclaimed Electric Picnic documentary, which captured the fun and frolics of last year’s festival.
RTÉ 2fm will be giving extensive radio coverage to the event and, for the first time, RTÉ.ie will be providing extensive coverage from the Electric Picnic with a choice of live streams. Details at www.rte.ie/electricpicnic early next week.
Date: Thursday 24 August 2006