Over 120 events across six stages mark two decades of the festival’s ideas and spoken word village, with America’s broligarchy, the EU presidency and three decades of Irish clubbing all up for discussion.
MindField, Electric Picnic’s village of spoken word, politics, comedy and ideas, turns 20 this year. Produced by Schweppe Curtis Nunn, the 2026 edition runs over 120 events across six stages: Ah, Hear (Podcast Stage), Leviathan (Political Cabaret Stage), Manifesto (Writing and Ideas Stage), The Theatre, The Word (Spoken Word Stage) and An Puball Gaeilge (Irish Language Stage).
This year’s anniversary lineup features lots of previous guests as a nod to the previous years: Dawn O’Porter, a live edition of The Blindboy Podcast, Dylan Moran, CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan and Liam Cunningham all feature across the weekend, alongside performances from the Irish National Opera. Since its first tent went up in 2006, MindField has hosted Jon Snow, Bob Geldof, David McWilliams, Florence Welch, Kae Tempest, Shane MacGowan and President Michael D. Higgins.
Dawn O’Porter joins Miriam O’Callaghan’s Picnic Brunch and sits down with Sinéad Gleeson for ‘Feeding the Hunger: A Life Told Through the Fridge Door’. Dylan Moran gets a rare in-conversation slot on Manifesto. Nicola Tallant returns with her Crime World Podcast, and Ciara Mageean joins Jarlath Regan to talk life, love, loss and craic.
America takes up a lot of the weekend’s attention, three months after its 250th anniversary. Andrew Maxwell hosts two Leviathan panels, ‘Divorcing the Superpower: The US, Europe and the Next 250 Years’ and ‘Move Fast and Break the State: The Politics of Populism and the Broligarchy’, with Donie O’Sullivan, Eric Lonergan, Mark Little and Jennifer O’Connell among the panellists. There’s also ‘Stealing Culture, Selling It Back: The USA at 250’ with Liam Lynch and Patrick Freyne, and a History Ireland Hedge School on a century of Ireland-US relations. O’Sullivan also joins director Colin Peppard to talk about My Friend Kev, winner of Best Short Documentary at the Galway Film Fleadh.
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Europe gets its own space in the conversation, with Ireland currently holding the EU presidency. The ambassadors of Ukraine and Moldova join Barry Andrews MEP and journalist Shona Murray for ‘Europe: Accession’, the ONE Campaign asks whether Ireland can convince the rest of Europe to invest globally with ‘Fair Play’, and Amnesty International runs its Republic of Conscience hour. On Manifesto, Liam Cunningham and Mikey Cullen discuss the Gaza Flotilla.
Music runs through the programme too. Singer Rowetta talks to Tom Dunne, Terry Christian brings Teenage Kicks to Manifesto as part of Jan Brierton’s Wild Words strand, and legal podcast The Fifth Court puts the Beatles on trial. Club culture gets its own inquest, with No Filler asking ‘Who Killed the Dancefloor?’ and photographer Brendan Duffy opening up his 15,000-image archive of Irish clubbing from the 1990s and 2000s for ‘The Only Camera in the Room’.
Sunday is largely handed over to writers, with Dylan Moran and Dawn O’Porter both on Manifesto, followed by a live broadcast of RTÉ Radio 1’s Brendan O’Connor Show and Miriam O’Callaghan’s Picnic Brunch with Alison Spittle, Frank McNally, Colm O’Regan and Deirdre O’Kane.
The Theatre also gets a dose of opera and dance this year, with the Irish National Opera performing twice on Saturday and CoisCéim Dance Theatre bringing Dancehall Blues on Friday. Niall Breslin and the Polaris Quartet bring their new immersive show The Place That Has Never Been Wounded, and on Ah, Hear, RTÉ’s Documentary on One gathers composers Paddy Flynn, Úlfur Eldjárn and Alma Kelliher.
Podcasts get a full stage of their own this year too, twenty years on from when MindField first opened and the word still needed explaining. Crime World, The Irish Times Inside Politics, Mike and Vittorio’s Guide to Parenting, Ross O’Carroll-Kelly, and Louise McSharry and Carl Kinsella with Emer McLysaght all appearing at Ah, Hear across the weekend. The Word runs spoken word and music from morning until midnight for three days straight, An Puball Gaeilge programmes the entire weekend through Irish, and Jan Brierton’s Wild Words strand brings Rowetta, Terry Christian, Caryn Franklin, Brendan Courtney and Maia Dunphy to Manifesto.
Electric Picnic takes place at Stradbally Hall, Co. Laois, from Friday August 28th to Sunday August 30th 2026, and is sold out.
Niall Byrne is the founder of the most-influential Irish music site Nialler9, where he has been writing about music since 2005. He is the co-host of the Nialler9 Podcast and has written for the Irish Times, Irish Independent, Sunday Times, Totally Dublin, Cara Magazine, Red Bull and more. Niall is a DJ, co-founder of Lumo Club, event curator, Indie Sleaze club promoter, and producer of gigs and monthly listening parties & events in Dublin.
