The clean-up operation has got under way on the grounds of Stradbally Hall after tens of thousands of bleary-eyed, mud-soaked Electric Picnickers packed up and left the site of the three-day festival on Monday morning.
Pictures and videos of the camping areas at Electric Picnic showed the usual amount of human detritus, with many opting to leave tents and assorted camping gear behind to be swept up by bulldozers brought on to the site for the clean-up.
Before the heavy machinery was brought in, teams of volunteers from local charities were allowed on to the Co Laois site to collect bottles and cans that will be converted to cash through the Re-Turn recycling scheme.
A local homelessness charity, meanwhile, sorted through the rubbish in search of serviceable sleeping bags that can be washed and given to people who might need shelter in the weeks and months ahead.
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A team from Portlaoise Action to Homelessness were on site for much of the afternoon.
“We have been doing this for about 10 years and our aim is to collect between 1,000 and 1,500 sleeping bags, which we will be able to distribute in Laois and Dublin,” said vice-chairman of the charity Jason McEvoy.
“The site is bad now, there is food everywhere,” he told The Irish Times. “I know the weather was pretty miserable over the weekend but it is not bad and it hasn’t made the clean up any worse than it was last year. It is pretty much the same as it always is,” he said.
Once the charity has scooped up as many sleeping bags as it can in the time given to them, they will be stored before being brought to Laois Shopping Centre on Thursday from about 6.30pm when volunteers will be sought to wash them.
“We wouldn’t be able to wash and dry all these sleeping bags on our own so what we are looking for is help. We are hoping people will come along and take what they can manage, wash and dry them, and bring them back to us a week later so we can distribute them. Last year we had one woman take 50 sleeping bags from us to launder,” McEvoy said.
About 80,000 people went to Electric Picnic this year and, despite concerns in some quarters about overcrowding at certain sets, the organisers were keen to stress how well the event was policed.
“There was no real drama at all, so the thought that you might be suggesting that it needs to be improved, quite frankly, is bonkers because it couldn’t have gone better,” said Melvin Benn, managing director of Festival Republic and main director of Electric Picnic, on Sunday.
There were no major traffic issues on Monday as fans left the site and, while tractors were on hand to pull free any cars that had become stuck in the muck, a relatively dry morning meant most motorists were able to free themselves from the fields around the site without any difficulty.
As with other years, the festival was largely peaceful and trouble-free, though one man in his late teens was arrested in connection with an alleged assault on Friday evening and was subsequently charged.
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A Garda spokesman said there were no statistics on the number of other arrests available.
While the curtain has come down on this year’s Electric Picnic, plans for next year are already being made with tickets going on general sale on Friday with presale channels opening on Wednesda.
