Emer McLysaght: At 3am in an underground bunker in the woods at Electric Picnic, I came to my senses

In my music festival heyday, the hardest thing about the whole experience was having to leave on Monday morning, dragged away from the campsite I had so quickly become institutionalised by. These days, it’s the effort of repeatedly lowering oneself on to the ground and then struggling to stand back up again without groaning so much that a nearby medical professional is alerted.

Last weekend I survived two days and a night at Electric Picnic. It was a far cry from the three nights I would have happily endured at the peak of my festival career, which spans 15 years, eight camping chairs, two flooded tents, one weekend attended against medical advice and too many swigs of 7am vodka mistaken for 7-Up to count. This time I there as an “artist”, invited to talk about the Aisling books in the Mindfield arena. With the wristband came access to the guest campsite, some semi-cushy parking backstage and an irresistible opportunity to party with the neon Lycra-clad Gen Z-ers and their ability to stand up from a seated position on the ground without using their hands.

I procured my ninth camping chair, two boxes of wine (one of my golden festival tips – discard the boxes and carry the bags around like goldfish prizes at a carnival) and hit the road

It turns out even with the slightly upmarket campsite (we still had to pitch our own tents) and the precarious parking space behind Billie Eilish’s dressingroom, I may have to re-enter music festival retirement. I first hung up my baby wipes in 2019 when three days of rain at All Together Now and a tent so close to the portaloos that I still hear the slamming of the plastic doors in my sleep pushed me to breaking point. We hightailed it out a 6am on the Monday morning and I swore I would never return to a festival campsite. Fast-forward to 2023 and an irresistible Electric Picnic Saturday night headliner in the form of DJ Fred Again followed by a doable Sunday 5pm slot for me and co-author Sarah Breen. I procured my ninth camping chair, two boxes of wine (one of my golden festival tips – discard the boxes and carry the bags around like goldfish prizes at a carnival) and hit the road.

It was probably at 3am in the underground bunker in the semi-secret Berlinhaus venue in the woods surrounding Electric Picnic that I came to my senses. We somehow found the queue – Berlinhaus isn’t on any EP map, stood in it for at least an hour and finally pushed through the trees to the cave-like entrance. Once inside, my senses assaulted by the thumping techno, blinding strobe lights, low roof and generous smoke machine output, I started to wonder if I had festivalled a little too close to the sun. One would need to be extremely well refreshed, in the substances sense, to endure a lengthy stay at Berlinhaus, and we had undershot the mark. An hour later I was campsite-bound, already the moment when my freezing tent would transform into a sweltering prison the second the sun hit it.

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At least we had sun. And we were smug with it. As Stradbally baked with largely dry and solid ground underfoot our counterparts at Burning Man in the Nevada desert in the US were being told to “shelter in place” after unprecedented rains turned the dry lake bed that constitutes the festival site into a muddy nightmare. On this side of the Atlantic seasoned festivalgoers rolled their eyes, well used to ankle-deep mud and bleak conditions. The mud at Burning Man is a different breed, though, cement-like and so alkaline it can burn the skin. Add in the fact that the portaloos went unemptied because the sewerage trucks couldn’t get on site and you’re talking pure hell.

For those who don’t attend festivals at all there’s definite Schadenfreude when disasters like this happen; you spent hundreds, thousands even, to sleep in a field or a desert knowing that conditions could be precarious. You brought this on yourself!

Why do we do it at all then? For me, I’ve loved the community of festivals. The camaraderie in the campsite, the quick establishment of a routine amid the chaos, the astounding array of music and entertainment, those special moments like the huge crowd for the Wolfe Tones at this year’s Electric Picnic or the many tributes to Sinéad O’Connor and Christy Dignam. Will I be back? Maybe if Met Éireann promise no rain and I don’t have to lug tents and bags of wine to and from the back of Billie Eilish’s dressingroom. Maybe in a yurt, with a bed, and a socket. Or maybe I’ll just stay at home.