Electric Picnic booker tells Hot Press how they got Arcade Fire

As detailed by Hot Press a short while ago, the initial line-up for this year’s Electric Picnic has been announced and boy, is it impressive. Amid ballroom-chic décor the Stradbally contingent revealed a star-studded line-up which ensured the blustery conditions weren’t the only thing blowing attendees away.

Having delivered a festival which boasts Pulp, Chemical Brothers and Arcade Fire as headliners, Declan Forde, musical director of the Stradbally event, spoke exclusively to HP’s Bryan O’Hanlon about his delight at this year’s bill.

“We’re absolutely thrilled with the line-up, there’s loads of acts on there that we’ve been trying to book for years,” he says. “We have the bigger headliners like Arcade Fire, and obviously Pulp are a dream for anyone, but then there’s the smaller niche acts like Flying Lotus, Death in Vegas and Jimmy Cliff among others, so we’re happy with the line-up from top to bottom.”

Many have already deemed the lineup to be one of the strongest in the festival’s eight year history and Declan certainly agrees. “I think in terms of headliners it’s one of the strongest bills we’ve had and the feedback so far has been extremely positive. There’s plenty more to announce too so come September I’m certain we’ll be looking at one of our strongest bills ever. There are many acts who I wanted to announce today who we now have to wait for next week to confirm so there’s plenty more to come.”

One of the major draws for the festival is the appearance of the worldwide phenomenon that is Arcade Fire. With their landmark 2005 performance attaining legendary status, Declan believes that particular show had a huge influence in luring the Canadian outfit to this year’s bash. “We’ve gone for Arcade Fire every year since they played in 2005 and we’ve finally managed to get them this time,” he beams. “Normally, there’s a lot more festivals in July so it makes sense for a Canadian band such as Arcade Fire to come over then and do four or five festivals in two weeks rather than Electric Picnic which is a little bit isolated. But this year Arcade Fire are just going to fly in for us, as a once off show, just to do Electric Picnic. They’re a band that sold 22,000 tickets at the O2 last year so they’re an act that are probably a little bit too big to headline a festival the size of Electric Picnic at this stage. They’ve probably done the festival for a little less and it’s something they’ve done from the heart, rather than looking at it from a financial point of view. I’m sure there’s plenty of other festivals who would have offered them more money than we have is probably the best way to put it.”

Despite the obvious excitement surrounding Arcade Fire’s return, for Declan, the true quality of the this year's event lies in its depth. “I’m also looking forward to the new Chemical Brothers’ show, which is meant to be a next step up in terms of audio-visuals, they’re going to up-the-ante again,” he proclaims excitedly. “Interpol are another band we’ve been trying to book since day one of the festival, and similarly Beirut and Flying Lotus are a huge coup for us. Lykke Li’s new album is creating such a buzz that I think by September she’ll be an even bigger star and we’ve got some amazing singer-songwriters, be it Willie Mason, Caitlin Rose, Ivan St john – I think there’s quality all the way through the line-up.

With the Irish music scene burning brighter than ever, Declan also believes seeing these emerging acts in front of huge crowds is a plus for the festival, when compared to its overseas rivals. “It’ll be great to see Irish bands such as Cast of Cheers and Adebisi Shank playing to relatively big crowds for them, " he says. "Obviously they pull decent crowds at their own gigs but getting to play in front of a few thousand people at a festival will hopefully be a landmark show for them. What annoys me is when you get people saying, ‘Oh you should go to Primavera’ or mentioning other festivals, but you couldn’t go there and see Imelda May playing to 15,000 people and bringing her Ma and Da on stage. You couldn’t go to those places and see Villagers filling a 4,000 capacity tent and another 3,000 people trying to get in outside. Coming along and seeing Irish bands doing really well and making their mark is one aspect which I enjoy most.”

A new innovation for 2011 is the introduction of a single day ticket for the Sunday. Though aware of the calls to introduce day tickets for the entire weekend, Declan explains the decision to restrict them solely to Sunday. “Day tickets have been the biggest conundrum for us,” he admits. “If we bring them back we then need eight different types of wrist bands, it means getting your wrist band checked at every turn, as well as confusion regarding letting people into the campsite, all of which goes against the spirit and ethos of Electric Picnic. The ease of bringing in just Sunday tickets is that we don’t have to kick anyone off site the end of the day”.

Declan also revealed that another line-up announcement is due in around a month’s time, so keep an eye on Hot Press for the latest news on this year’s bill.