WATCH: Electric Picnic Rock The Boat SMASH Guinness World Record
They did it! Electric Picnic Banter group's fundraiser for SOSAD Laois suicide prevention charity
Electric Picnic 2024 has got off to an incredibly uplifting start in Laois, with the utter smashing of the Guinness World Record for the number of people taking part in Rock The Boat.
The Electric Picnic Banter Facebook fan group were behind the challenge, which they hope has raised over €3,000 for the Laois branch of the SOSAD Ireland suicide prevention charity.
Their idea got the backing and promotion of Electric Picnic, and was held in the Terminus arena on Thursday evening, August 15, for early entry ticketholders to the weekend long festival.
The previous record was set earlier this year in Derry with 1,888 participants. It is fair to say that record has been well and truly smashed and flung out of the boat.
Group admin Dave Ward spoke to the Leinster Express / Laois Live.
"We came up with the idea of a Guinness World Record Attempt for Electric Picnic after last year's festival we wanted to do something that fits in with what the picnic is about fun, inclusive with people of all ages and decided on Rock the Boat as its a tradition that Irish people of all ages would be familiar with especially if they have been to weddings 21sts etc
"We reached out to the team at Electric Picnic and their reaction to the idea was amazing from the initial suggestion all the way through to our successful attempt last night.
"We were a little nervous all week about the attendance but from 7:30pm people started turning up in huge numbers Terminus is one of the biggest tents on site and we certainly made good use of the space available with the support our members provided.
"We are absolutely over the moon with the result, we used 3797 wristbands so that is the official figure that we can submit to Guinness World Record but we think we could have had 4500 by the time the song began as we seen a massive surge of people come in after our team had stood down from issuing the bands.
"We cannot thank everyone for their support the EP Banter Group are proud holders of a world record. Now we have to plan on what can top this at Electric Picnic 2025," Dave said.