OXEGEN FANS have been told to pay no attention to internet rumours suggesting that some major acts will not be appearing at the festival at Punchestown at the weekend.
As the build-up to the big event continued it was announced yesterday that the World Cup final will be broadcast live on a giant screen to interested festival goers on Sunday.
Regarding the line-up, a report appeared on a website last week suggesting that Sunday night’s headliner Eminem was pulling out. Eminem famously cancelled his Slane Castle appearance in 2005 along with the rest of his European tour.
Event controller John Probyn said there were “inevitable rumours” going around about various artists, but he said the only place to check for sure was the Oxegen website, oxegen.ie.
A spokesman for promoters MCD said Eminem would definitely be playing the festival, which gets under way at Punchestown Racecourse, Co Kildare, on Friday afternoon.
The only major artist who has cancelled to date is the guitarist John Mayer who was due to play on Saturday night. He has cancelled all of the remaining dates on his European tour because of an undisclosed illness.
His misfortune has resulted in a lucky break for up-and-coming Northern Irish electro-pop act Two Door Cinema Club, which has been bumped up to the main stage on Saturday evening.
The festival is likely to be favoured by the weather for a change. The prolonged dry spell means the ground will not cut up like it did last year where the festival was preceded by weeks of wet weather.
The forecast for the festival is mixed with rain due tomorrow night, but there is likely to be no repeat of the deluge that turned the venue to mud in recent times.
Saturday and Sunday look promising at this stage.
This year’s line-up features Arcade Fire, Muse and Eminem as headline acts, but is heavy on dance and rap-orientated acts like Jay-Z, Faithless, Dizzee Rascal, Black Eyed Peas and Fatboy Slim.
The first Oxegen iPhone app, which is supported by The Irish Times, has already proved to be popular and is the most downloaded application in Ireland at the moment.
It tells the iPhone owner what acts are on stage in real time and a novel application, it allows a festival-goer to locate their tents by means of GPS and also to locate other friends who have iPhones.
The giant Nokia Live Stage in the blue campsite at Oxegen will provide another festival first.
The 100-metre square screen will broadcast the World Cup final on Sunday which starts at 7.30pm.
Gardaí have stressed again that festival-goers should use public transport as there will be very little parking at the event.
Garda spokesman Supt John Gilligan urged those attending to take their time leaving the site on Monday as there will be a high Garda presence on the roads and motorists will be monitored for drink driving.
The fear of the breathalyser is unlikely to faze one small group of festival-goers who will be cycling to the event from Dublin, a distance of 27 kilometres.
The charity cycle for the Christina Noble Foundation takes place from Terenure College tomorrow morning, arriving at the Oxegen site at lunchtime.
The festival has a capacity of 80,000 and is not yet sold out.
