POPTOPIA: THISISPOPBABY VENUE
ELECTRIC PICNIC MUSIC & ARTS FESTIVAL
POPTOPIA, a groundbreaking performance venue at Electric Picnic Music and Arts Festival that platformed and celebrated queer performance, counter culture and bloody good tunes. It ran consecutively between 2008 & 2010.
“The company is not so much cutting edge,
as creator of a new edge in itself”
– The Sunday Tribune
“The three-days-and-nights love-in from the
THISISPOPBABY crew is here for you to wow over”
– Jim Carroll
“The most interesting development is from THISISPOPBABY
…bizarre, hilarious and completely surreal.
And that, my friends electric, is what the Picnic is all about”
– Sunday Tribune
2010 EDITION
Drag Superstars, WERK Idols, Performance Giants: THISISPOPBABY hatched their best Picnic line-up.
Under the inflatable gaze of a giant benevolent baby, THISISPOPBABY hatched a perversely outlandish programme of Drag Royalty, Petit Queens, Wonky Poppers and Performance Giants for the Electric Picnic Music and Arts Festival 2010.
Art installation, subversive performance space and late night den of excess; THISISPOPBABY’s 2010 sucker punch bill featured exclusive performances from: Robyn (acoustic set), Our Lady J, Jonny Wooand, Bourgeois and Maurice, Chew Lips, Panti, Shirley Temple Bar, Heidi Konnt, Veda Beaux Rêves, Bitches with Wolves, THEATREClub, Ponydance, Krisma, Dizzy Dyin’ For It, Roxxy Stone, Opus Gei and the Glorious Mysteries, Bunny, Jackie Cash, Regina George, Blaithnaid McGee, Shazwanda, Alter Ego, AnimaLady, Mr C Gull; DJs Chewy Chewerson, Martin McCann, Will Dempsey, Cap Pas Cap, The Pulpit, Late Fragments, and more.
2009 EDITION
Pop goes the Picnic: THISISPOPBABY riped up Stradbally with a gender bending, genre-blending 3-day POPTOPIA!
September 2009 in a field in Co Laois, THISISPOPBABY give birth to POPTOPIA – installation metropolis, fantastical performance space and 72-hour palace of party, play and disorientation.
THISISPOPBABY was back for 2009 with a bigger tent; a skewed mega structure with over 120 artists performing within a scintillating new design, again created by Niall Sweeney.
Performers included: Panti, Heidi Konnt, Ophelia, Anne Bushnell, Anúna, Ebony Bones, Neosupervital, Bitches With Wolves, Veda, Le Gateau Chocolat, Marawa, Jerry Bouthier, The Poptopian Bureau of Desire and Disorientation, Sally Foran, Mimi and Mark, Paddy Scahill, Chewy Chewerson, April Showers and Davina Devine, Tonie Walsh, Aidan Kelly, Martin McCann, Dark Room Notes, DySec, Trannymal Farm, and more!
2008 EDITION
Pucker-Up and get POPsmacked: thisispopbaby’s Dark-and-Shiny Unicorn rides the Picnic!
POP goes the Looking Glass: step through the video-screen into a fairy-tale from the future. The newest space to feature at this year’s Electric Picnic is a surreal futuristic Wonderland inhabited by the dark, the twisted, and the strangely-beautiful. thisispopbaby’s three-day, non-stop transgressive PopArty is a palace of Performance, Myth and Discotheque. With gender illusion, blinding visions and grotesque wit, you will have found yourself Popsucked and Poplicked by a host of international tranniversalist superstars. And then when your sweat turned to artificial sugar as you dance deep into your future you will have found yourself returning to POP, over and over…
Performers Included: The Discovery Gospel Choir, Amy G (La Clique), Justin Bond & Our Lady J, Panti, Shirley Temple Bar, Veda Beau Reve, Dizzy & Dolly, The Dying Seconds, You’re Only Massive, The Skinny Twins and more!
Conceived & Curated by: Jennifer Jennings & Phillip McMahon
Designed by: Niall Sweeney
Produced by: Louise O’Reilly
Co-produced by: Nik Quaife (2008)
