Festival Republic head Melvin Benn has responded to reported incidents of crowd collapses and overcrowding at this year’s Electric Picnic festival.
The sold-out Irish festival welcomed around 80,000 people over the August Bank Holiday, and saw the likes of Lewis Capaldi, CMAT, Zara Larsson and more head to County Laois.
The house DJ Armand Van Helden was set to perform at the festival on Friday night, however his set was cancelled before he took to the stage due to safety concerns around crowd capacity.
“We stopped [the performance] immediately as soon as we could see a crowd collapse,” Melvin told Valerie Flynn, assistant news editor at The Journal during a press conference at the festival. “Sometimes a crowd is full and doesn’t collapse. There was no crowd collapse on any other any other stage at any other time. I don’t know why the crowd collapsed at that moment, but the moment that it did, we stopped it,” Melvin added.
This came after one festival-goer described the collapse as feeling “like a silent bomb blast” and “the most terrifying thing ever.”
Electric Picnic promoter responds after crowd collapse incident ahead of Armand van Helden DJ set at too small venue. pic.twitter.com/VdVMbcZGnm
— Valerie Flynn (@valerie_flynn) August 30, 2026
Further incidents were reported during a set from British producer and DJ Duke Dumont, whose set drew in large numbers. Entry to the stage was limited by stewards and gardaí, while alerts were sent to festival-goers through Electric Picnic’s official app.
Weather-related issues were also experienced at festivals across the UK during the August Bank Holiday weekend. Both Reading and Leeds Festival were hit by wet weather and muddy terrain, while on Thursday night [28 August]. Liverpool’s Creamfields were also forced to cut performances short due to thunderstorms, with Sidemen DJ Vikkstar’s set being cut off mid-show for safety reasons.
