Last weekend Nearly three weeks ago (it’s hard to get stuff done with kids), I brought two kids to a full weekend of Electric Picnic, and, as my partner was otherwise occupied, I did so solo. I have absolutely no regrets whatsoever, but it does seem to evoke surprise when I mention it. So, for anyone considering taking the plunge and bringing kids along, here are a few notes on what it was all like.

A couple of key points before I start...

• The kids are ten and two. It’s important to remember kids between 12 and 18 are not allowed at Electric Picnic.
• Kids under 12 do not require a ticket, but there is a limit of two per adult.
• We did not camp. I seriously considered it, especially given there are quite impressive family camping facilities next to ‘Little Picnic’, but fear that the two year old would escape the tent during the night got the better of me, so up and down from Dublin it was.

Now, before I talk about my own experience, I would point out that Electric Picnic is actually quite encouraging towards kids, and while some punters will greet you with phrases like “oh jaysus, a baby”, there are a significant number of families on site. The website also has a specific facility for registering children and their parents’ contact numbers, in case anything should happen.

If you are with children, it is critical to take a different approach, however. I’d normally be a gig fiend at a festival. It would be fairly typical to manage to rack up at least 30 shows over the course of a long weekend, including stage-hopping to try and see acts that closely overlap. I know some people stay by their tent with a beer or five until early evening, or hang quietly in bars or coffee places. I don’t, generally. I go to lots of shows. But doing so relentlessly is absolutely out of the window.

What you do instead is take it slow and steady. The ten year old is able for a chunk of shows. The two year old, not so much. Instead, what we did was wander between the circus, the quieter tents, and the areas of forest where we could explore art installations and watch tiny stages, climb crumbling Volkswagen Beetles, or bash on battered pianos. This sounds, intuitively, like a negative next to standing in front of your choice of act, especially if you treat festivals like I do. But it isn’t. It’s simply a different way of taking things in, and it rewards with different experiences.

Of course, that’s not to say that we avoided the bigger stages, as this set of reviews will tell you. Just that they were far less pervasive while we went for ice cream, climbed the fun house or took in the serenity garden. The Main Stage, it’s probably worth mentioning, is easier to do with kids than the tents. It’s light until late, and there are spaces, particularly to the front right as you look at it all, that are not that cramped even for the biggest acts.

So what did the kids make of it? Well, it’s worth mentioning that this is the 10 year old’s third Picnic, and he starts asking about it sometime around Easter each year, so he’s quite keen. In fact, he’s already upset that in a couple of years he’ll no longer be allowed to attend. The younger one is on her fourth festival (Beyond The Pale twice, and a few hours at Picnic in 2023), and at times she gets overwhelmed, but mostly she just seems to enjoy the colour and the noise. So long as she’s sensibly managed and never, ever let out of sight, everything is well. Come about 9pm, she is tucked into her offroad buggy, covered in a blanket and pushed around a quieter corner until she drifts off to sleep.

There are, naturally, a few essentials to make it go smoothly. Rain is a great fear when you’re rolling a buggy around (the boggy ground could be extremely prohibitive), and you have to account for that, though we got lucky this year. Toilets can be less than ideal with a toddler, and you’ll need to prioritise tracking down the cleaner ones, because she will try and touch things. Then there’s snacks for the kids, but more than that, drinks.

I found it oddly difficult to provide the younger one with anything that wasn’t fizzy, though security seemed to have a lax attitude to children’s drinks (only, presumably, in the company of children), so perhaps bringing them in is key. I put the younger one’s sippy cup in her hand as we walked into the arena, on the assumption that no one would think I’m cruel enough to pass her alcohol, and so it would go through. It did.

Sound blocking headphones were not worn all the time, but were certainly essential in any of the tents, or anywhere near the front of the main stage, and for sleep for the younger one. On a couple of occasions we needed to walk away as they found more vibrant acts overwhelming.

During the day, there’s Little Picnic, which is a small area to the right as you look at the Main Stage, in by family camping. It’s sparse and quiet, and offers a nice break, and while we didn’t spend a lot of time there, the chance to hang out with quieter performers like clowns and children’s entertainers is sometimes a necessary break.

At the end of the day, I rolled the buggy out to the car park, unloaded the two year old, hours into her night’s sleep, directly into her car seat, drove home, and prepared to do it all again the next day. By the end of it all, naturally, I was utterly exhausted (not helped by the younger child still being in that ‘up at 6am’ phase), but saw a few great bands, the kids had the best experience of their summer, and I felt like they understood a little bit of my world (for context, I’ve lost count of how many festivals I’ve been to, but it’s comfortably more than a hundred over the years, including once doing nine in a single summer, which I think is a decent number for someone who isn’t performing).

Was it exhausting? Absolutely, not least because of getting in at 2-3am every morning (though the traffic to and from the site is much better on days apart from Friday and Sunday evening, predictably, so the run home actually isn’t awful most nights).

Would I recommend it? I suppose it depends on whether you’re willing to pay the ticket price to see only your key acts, and focus on the kids the rest of the time. I certainly saved more on bar trips than I spent on fairground rides and ice cream. Given the kids don’t add to the ticket price, it’s very doable, and while it certainly bore little resemblance to how I took in festivals in my 20s (no drinking at all, for one), I would still recommend it for those who accept up front what the whole thing is going to involve, and adapt accordingly. Picnic can actually be done in a mellow way.

I went to my first festival at 18, and saw my first live band at 15 in the local arts centre. It went on to become an absolutely massive part of my life. My 10 year old loves The Killers and has already seen them twice. He keeps a keen eye on who’s coming into Dublin to play, and gets on to me about tickets. My two year old is obsessed with her toy guitar and talks excitedly about festivals, to the great confusion of people who don’t know us well. I sacrifice a tiny bit of my experience by bringing them, but there’s no question it’s changing their lives for the better.