Electric Picnic Laois residents grateful for 600 reserved tickets
"People are delighted with it” - Stradbally locals get reserved tickets for Electric Picnic 2027
Stradbally residents who don’t live near enough to the Cosby estate to qualify for free Electric Picnic tickets, got their own reserved batch of full price tickets to buy ahead of the sold out rush last Friday.
For the first time this year, 600 tickets were set aside for anyone with a Stradbally Eircode to buy, a day before all the other tickets went on sale and sold out in just over an hour last Friday, September 4.
It followed complaints by residents of their difficulty in buying tickets for the festival despite it being practically on their doorstep.
Catherine Murphy is chair of the Electric Picnic Residents Committee. She told the Leinster Express more.
"The locals found it very hard to buy the tickets, so the committee went back to look for tickets to be reserved.
"People are delighted with it, who really wanted to go but didn't have tickets,” she explained.
The tickets were also priced at the €245 loyalty price. The residents who signed up for the offer were given their own personal access code, allowing them to buy up to two tickets each.
It is extra to about 2,000 day tickets that are given to Stradbally residents in return for a charity donation, to compensate for disruptions caused by the festival.
Also new this year was a hotline for Stradbally residents. The locals are also looked after with residents passes for their cars, and carers’ passes for carers coming to visit clients in the town.
Festival Republic had also produced 1,600 hard-copy EP26 Residents’ Information Booklets this year, containing key information for residents over the festival period.
Catherine says that locals and the committee are happy to continue to welcome what is the biggest music festival in Ireland to their small town.
"There is an excellent working relationship between ourselves and the ladies nominated to deal with our committee. They are always available to us.
"We are looking forward to next year. The feedback is very good from this year. There are a few little things that we will go back to Festival Republic with, but there will always be. We accept that it is an inconvenience, to have 80,000 people come to our town.
“But it is most definitely still welcomed in Stradbally. It’s great for everybody, for the community, for the county,” Catherine said.
Electric Picnic 2027 will take place from August 27 to 29.