Hay! It's a new festival 'for the mind'

One of the best things about the Electric Picnic festival has always been the so-called spoken word area, which was rechristened ‘Mindfield’ last year. A self-contained village away from the main musical stages, it was really a festival within a festival, and now it seems it is to become a festival all of its own, independent of the Electric Picnic, but not of the EP promoters.

The grounds of Kilmainham are set to be the venue for the maiden ‘Mindfield’ Festival, which will take place on the May Bank Holiday between April 30 and May 1st. A large and varied selection of “the world's finest minds” are promised, and they “will convene over one weekend to argue, provoke, discuss and debate everything from football to architecture; global economics to climate change; politics to cartoons; photography to media; technology to graphic design; and history to fashion.”

The festival is firmly taking its cues from the Hay Festival in Wales which has risen in world prominence since Sky Arts became involved. POD Concerts are the main crew behind it, though there will be several others involved.

It’s proposed that Mind Field at Kilmainham will feature six ‘main’ performance stages housing the official line-up and dozens of smaller tents/concessions, no doubt housing a load of mad men. It will retain its Electric Picnic charm, where the village feel is central to its independence from the rest of the festival, and it will be laid out in a similar fashion to the Carlsberg Comedy Festival and Taste of Dublin showcase. So, we can expect a ring of elegant marquees with a central area for folk to mingle, complain about the coffee and wonder why they can’t get into the big tent to hear Jon Snow interview someone about the War on Iraq.

Stage-wise it will be a bigger version of its Picnic incarnation, with a better line-up to match. Dozens of international names in the fields of fashion, food, theatre, literature, broadcasting, poetry, music, comedy, photography and much more are already as good as confirmed. Jon Snow is returning after his success at the Picnic this year (see below), and it’s hope he’ll be conducting public interviews with central figures in the peace process up north including John Major and (pending his appearance at the public enquiry into the Iraq War) Tony Blair.

The popular Leviathan Political Caberet will have a stage/marquee to call its own, and it will be the true heart of the festival with talks, debates, interviews and much more taking place. There will be ‘The Arts Stage’, featuring talks and demonstrations with artists, painters, photographers, designers, architects, musicians and many more. There’s talk of some serious names for this, with Herb Ritts, David La Chapelle, Damien Hirst, Sir Norman Foster, Brian Eno, and more allegedly booking flights to Dublin that weekend.

The Arts Council Literary Stage is also going to be housed under the drapes of a crisp marquee. The usual suspects like Seamus Heaney, John Banville, etc will be here, but expect curveball additions like JK Rowling, and Salman Rushdie and editors of some of the world’s finest mags like Rolling Stone, Vogue. Hopefully they’ll have a slot for populist authors such as Bertie's daughter and whoever else is setting the chick-lit world alight as it would be nice to learn how to write a hit. Poetry in all its guises will be under the roof of The Word Stage. Appearances from the likes of Patti Smith, Henry Rollins, Saul Williams and Linton Kwezi Johnson are already being talked about. The Theatre Stage is set to expand its remit from the Picnic, where the emphasis was on home-grown, mainly independent theatre. Depending on what the budget is, a pile of professional luvvies from Ireland and the UK will descent on Kilmainham to take over this cultural corner.

There will also be a Salon du Chat, Cookery Stages, Irish language stages and hopefully they’ll get Chaos Thaoghaire involved too. There’s also scope for a cinema tent, which will come complete with talks about cult movies.

So, basically, a transportation of the Electric Picnic Mindfield to Kilmainham with a few more bells and whistles added.

Last year was probably the best year yet for the Mindfield area at the Picnic, with a cool line-up and a bewildering amount of stages. Officially there were seven central stages, but at any one time there always seemed to be more events happening than that amount of stages could accommodate. As well as all the ‘action’, there was also the nice addition of a few more food concessions, a book shop, a gallery or two, a wine bar and more besides. New EP investor Melvyn Benn couldn’t help but be impressed by the area, what with its white picket fences, sculpture, deck chairs and wordy content and hopefully he’ll green light its retention for the new, improved 2010 staging of the festival. The only thing really missing in 2009 was people. This could easily be solved for 2010 if they decide to end the continued exile of the Comedy Tent, which really needs to be incorporated into this area to generate more footfall and/or interest.

Looking back at September from the comfort of November, the Leviathan Political Cabaret was probably the star attraction for most of the punters in there, with its gala line up of thinkers, journalists, writers, musicians, philosophers, Government ministers, star-turns and David McWilliams. The elegant Jon Snow from Channel 4 cut quite the dash as he took to that stage and the literary stage on several occasions over the weekend. Surrounded by adoring fans no matter where he went, it was quite amusing to see a newsreader get more attention than a member of The Clash who passed out in front of the Theatre Stage a year earlier. No one seemed to notice who anyone else was, and many great writers and other big figures Snow would interview over the weekend walked around unhassled.

The Word Stage, hosted by slam poetry kingpin Marty Mulligan, was another great success, mixing a fine blend of poetry, spoken word, slam, prose, rap, readings, literature, comedy and music. Here, the Book Club Boutique, Selena Godden, Olaf Tyaransen, Marty himself and many others really impressed. There were numerous guest appearances here all weekend, and yours truly put in a performance (see elsewhere on this site) which attracted a decent crowd and a mention in the official Picnic paper The Ticket.

There was also the Salon du Chat, the Science Gallery, the Theatre Stage (moved back indoors after an outdoor outing in 2008), the Hot Press signing tent where a Sunday newspaper hack recorded Tommy Tiernan’s unfortunate comments on a certain race, transcribed them and probably ruined TT’s Stateside career in doing so. The Literary Stage was also great, and was certainly the plushest, showing all the signs of its Arts Council investment. The Irish Language Stage programmed by Kíla and Des O’Bishop was also a hit, with ‘How to Swear in Irish’ particularly memorable for some.
Appearing on them all was thousands of performers, with much praise emerging for Ryan Tubridy (on the weekend of his Late Late Show debut), BP Fallon, The Aftermath, The Camembert Quartet, Jinx Lennon, Brian Keenan, Irvine Welsh, John Banville and loads more names that were originally written on my now lost EP notebook.

So, how will it work as its own festival? I think it’ll work just fine. The mainstream media is full of miserablism and recession talk, and as the recent success of books like The Builders, The Bankers and the latest from McWilliams and Hobbs has proved, people love it. With plenty of that promised, and some serious star names in the fields of politics, poetry, literature, design, fashion etc lined up, Mind Field could well grow too big for the Electric Picnic.

It probably would work better if it was within walking distance of the City Centre. Whilst there’s no denying that Kilmainham is only a stroll away and is a very pleasant environment for such a festival, Merrion Square or Iveagh Gardens would also have been good choices. Still, with IMMA next door, that can only lead to the involvement of more figures from the art world, and that can only be a good thing.

No word yet on tickets, or even if it has got planning, but all that will follow soon. Remember where you read about it first.