Hot Press has had some of the greats leave their imprint on the famous Chat Room couches at Electric Picnic over the years, boasting a hall of fame that includes the likes of Bob Geldof, Blondie, Chuck D, New Order, The Flaming Lips, DJ Shadow, Tame Impala as well as all the top Irish acts.

While there’s still a host of names to be unveiled for this year’s proceedings, Hot Press has announced a truly stellar line-up so far.

This year will also see the see the introduction of the Hot Press resident DJs with sets every day by FRANK JEZ and DJ TRISTAN WATERS.

What’s more, all visitors to the Hot Press Chat Room – located in MINDFIELD at Electric Picnic – can also have their own Hot Press cover shoot against the Hot Press Wall of Fame… afterwards visitors receive their very own digital copy of themselves on the Electric Picnic Hot Press cover! All free of charge!

The Hot Press Chat Room Line-Up
@MINDFIELD, Electric Picnic

FRIDAY
The Divine Comedy (4:30pm)
Hudson Taylor
Columbia Mills
Orchid Collective
Soulé
Jafaris
Plus loads more to be announced!
+DJ sets by Frank Jez & DJ Tristan Waters

SATURDAY
Susan O’Neill (1pm)
THE HOT PRESS INTERVIEW, LIVE: Ian Bailey (2pm)
The Hot Sprockets (3pm)
PANEL // Myths & Minorities: The State Has Let Us All Down (4pm)
Phill Jupitus
Ralph Rolle (Chic) (5pm)
Annie Mac
Public Service Broadcasting (9pm)
Plus more to be announced!
+DJ sets by Frank Jez & DJ Tristan Waters

SUNDAY
Dublin Gospel Choir
David Keenan (2pm)
The Strypes
PANEL // Sex & Drugs & Harm Reduction: A look at sensible Irish drug policy (3.30pm)
Mark Geary
The Frank And Walters
Plus lots more to be announced!
+DJ sets by Frank Jez & DJ Tristan Waters
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As well as the all-star cast of musical acts, this year's Hot Press Chat Room will see an array of additional panel discussions and interviews, including:

THE HOT PRESS INTERVIEW, LIVE: Ian Bailey (2pm, Sat) – detail below.
PANEL // Myths & Minorities: The State Has Let Us All Down (4pm, Sat) – detail below.
PANEL // Sex & Drugs & Harm Reduction: A look at sensible Irish drug policy (3.30pm, Sun)

THE HOT PRESS INTERVIEW, LIVE: Ian Bailey
The man at the centre of one of the most high-profile cases in the State, Ian Bailey, is to make an exclusive appearance at the Hot Press Chat Room at Electric Picnic. Bailey was arrested twice in relation to the 1996 murder of French film producer Sophie Toscan du Plantier, however he has never been charged and has always strongly protested his innocence. Appearing at the Hot Press Chat Room at 2pm on Saturday, Bailey will be interviewed by Hot Press journalist Olaf Tyaransen, in a conversation that will offer an absolutely fascinating insight into one of the most debated cases in modern Irish history. Earlier this year, Tyaransen carried out a comprehensive interview with Bailey in Hot Press, which laid bare the toll the case has taken on his life.

PANEL // Myths & Minorities: The State Has Let Us All Down
John Connors, star of Love Hate and Cardboard Gangsters, and Hot Press’ Adrienne Murphy, tackle the propaganda and stigma surrounding the travelling community and also autism.

• John Connors has debunked the State-sponsored propaganda that Travellers are dispossessed people from the Famine (ie failed settled people) and uncovered, through DNA testing, that Travellers are in fact the last vestiges of pre-colonialist Gaelic society, which was nomadic. The 'dispossessed Famine victims' myth has been used by the State to justify the ongoing destruction of the Travellers' indigenous way of life.

• Adrienne Murphy has succeeded in breaking her 14-year-old son, Caoimh, out of his locked-in state, to become one the first severely autistic non-speaking people in history to enter the world of full communication through letter-pointing on an alphabet stencil. Caoimh and others like him are overthrowing the myth that non-speaking autism de facto implies intellectual disability (previously called 'mental retardation', denoting low IQ and an inability to understand language).

In what promises to be controversial, challenging and hugely inspiring conversation, the two discuss the particular myths that their own revolutionary work has overthrown, and dogma-breaking in a more general sense, including the perseverance required in the face of ongoing hardwired bigotry and blinkered indoctrination in demonstrably erroneous theories.