This is your one-week warning. The biggest, best and last party of the summer is just seven days away. We can smell the excitement off you from here.
In this week's Ticket in print, you'll find our pre-festival special, but this is just the opening shot in our Electric Picnic coverage. From Monday, on irishtimes.com, we'll have the exclusive first look at this year's stage times, which we will be releasing throughout the week before anyone else.
No Clashfinder will be complete until you’ve seen it on our site first, so check in with us before you finalise your festival timetable.
Next week, we'll also be getting a tour of this year's festival site. For a first look at the official festival map, click here to download the PDF. And for a full video tour of EP, check out irishtimes.com on Tuesday afternoon, when we'll be onsite to see the final touches being applied to this year's arenas.
Next Friday, when most of you will be packing tents, cans and [redacted] into the back of your Fiat Punto, we will be firing up our live blog and reporting from Stradbally, Co Laois. So keep an eye on it for all the latest traffic and travel information, and the best bits of news, tweets and tips that we can find among the migrating masses.
Once you’re safely on site the games can begin. We’ll be in Stradbally all weekend, reporting, writing, previewing and partying (to the most professional standards, of course) with the Irish Times Electric Picnic team.
In a ritual that’s as ancient and traditional as the winter solstice, the Rose of Tralee or the drawing of the dole, we’ll be writing, editing and producing special editions of the Ticket from our trusty shed in the backstage area of the festival.
We’ll have a team of writers and reporters roaming the Laois hills, looking for your stories and gossip, so if you see us on site, come and say hello. On Saturday and Sunday, we’ll be distributing the special edition free all throughout the campsites and festival arenas. So if your story is a particularly good one, you can lord it over your mates when it appears in print as you’re getting stuck into the first breakfast roll of the day.
We’ll also be pitching up this year with our lovely friends in Trailer Park, with a little blue caravan packed with surprises for the weekend. Drop by and say hi, take a load off and we might throw you a goody bag or two to keep you motoring.
And then on Monday, when you're dying a death and wondering where it all went wrong, you can relive your festival experience in The Irish Times, and on our website, with all of our festival coverage from the weekend.
But hush child. Don’t speak of such hungover horrors. There’s an awful lot of fun to get through first. Pack sun cream. Tell your mother where you’re going. Only arrange to meet with friends who are actually fun. Don’t forget to charge your phone. And we’ll see you up the front, left-hand speaker for Floating Points.
