"Tough questions, inspiring answers, heated debate, huge laughs, provocative ideas, heart-breaking poetry, magnificent speeches, mind-blowing science, transcendent theatre, soaring literature and much, much more" are promised as MindField returns to Electric Picnic.
Running this year under the 'Future States' banner, the various events will be asking 'where to now for Ireland" following the 1916 commemorations and the Brexit vote.
Highlights will include daily live broadcasts from Waterford Whispers News; the return of Soundings: Podcast hosted by Dylan Haskins and award-winning comedy writer Sharon Horgan; the Twenty One Sixteen Parliament chaired by Ceann Comhairle Blindboy Boatclub who also leads the panel of gas cuntists positing: What The Fuck Is Culture Anyway? and Sunday Brunch, which will be presided over by Miriam O’Callaghan and Al Porter.
More cutting edge current affairs is provided by the David McWilliams-hosted 3Debates while the Amnesty Hour will address the ongoing refugee crisis.
The Word: Poetry And Slam stage includes Mik Artistik, Mary Coughlan, Backroad Smokers Club, Brownbread Mixtape, Candlelit Tales, Gary Dunne, Fallen Lights, Kalle Ryan, Graham Sweeney, John Conneely, New Valley Wolves, The Resurrection, Stone and Jezreel, John Cummins and Mademoiselle K among its extremely cunning linguists.
Cathal Maguire’s thrilling solo storytelling, Always Alone Together; Robbie O’Connor and Aisling O’Mara’s Rebel Rebel and 16 And Rising, director Louise Lowe’s chronicling of modern urban disenfranchisement, are just a few of the Theatre Stage highlights.
Add in the return of the Science Gallery, Google Gaelige Karaoke and An Pubaill Gaelige and it promises to be another glorious, multimedia feast for the senses.