Other acts on the bill include Sombr and Geese
By Tom Skinner 2nd December 2025
CMAT and Fontaines D.C.'s Grian Chatten perform live. CREDIT: Andy Ford for NME
Electric Picnic has announced the first wave of artists for its 2026 festival. Check out the line-up so far below.
- READ MORE: Fontaines D.C. tell us about beautiful new single ‘It’s Amazing To Be Young’ and what’s next
The three-day event will take place at Stradbally Hall in County Laois, Ireland, between Friday August 28, and Sunday August 30. Tickets are on sale now here.
AdvertisementCMAT and Fontaines D.C. – two of the current biggest Irish acts – will both appear at Electric Picnic ’26, with the latter headlining on Sunday night. Gorillaz are due to close the main stage on Saturday, with the headliner for Friday yet to be revealed.
Completing the nine confirmed names for next summer’s festival are Sombr, Skepta, Wunderhorse, Zara Larsson, Role Model and Geese.
Electric Picnic takes place across the same weekend as Reading & Leeds, which will also host a bill-topping slot from Fontaines D.C.. Skepta, Sombr, Role Model and Geese are among the names on the initial R&L poster, too.
Fontaines currently do not have any other scheduled live performances for 2026. They wrapped up the campaign for their Mercury-nominated fourth album ‘Romance’ this summer, and played a huge gig at London’s Finsbury Park.
With dates now in the calendar for next year, fans are speculating over whether new music is on the horizon.
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CMAT, meanwhile, is set to play her “biggest shows ever” on a 2026 UK and Ireland tour. She’ll also top the bill at London’s LIDO Festival and Dorset’s End Of The Road, and make appearances at TRNSMT, Truck Festival, Bearded Theory and more.
The singer-songwriter released her acclaimed third album, ‘Euro-Country’, in August. It was shortlisted for this year’s Mercury Prize, but lost out to Sam Fender’s ‘People Watching’.
Gorillaz’ new album, ‘The Mountain’, is out in March. They’re heading out on a UK and Ireland tour next year – including a massive gig at London’s Tottenham Hotspur Stadium – and will perform at Primavera Sound Barcelona and Porto.
AdvertisementThey dropped the single ‘The God Of Lying’ (featuring Idles) last month, following on from their recent songs ‘The Happy Dictator’ (feat. Sparks) and ‘The Manifesto’ with Trueno and late D12 member Proof.
Speaking to NME in February, Fontaines D.C. bassist Conor Deegan III revealed that the band were already at work on album number five.
“It’s one of those things where we can’t stop writing – it’s something that we just do when we’re with each other,” he told us. “We should probably take a break from it because it would be nice to let the ‘Romance’ world simmer down a bit and open up our imaginations to something else.
“I think we’ll just keep writing and stay connected to each other, then when we finish up the tour we can get into the more serious conceptualisation or whatever.”
Asked about the direction of new material in the works, Deego replied:” There are a couple of songs that have a feel to them, but then there are a couple that are more loose. We haven’t decided yet where we want to go with it, but I’m interested with the songs we have so far.”
The conversation took place upon the release of their standalone single ‘It’s Amazing To Be Young’, which would later find a home on a deluxe edition of ‘Romance’, along with new track ‘Before You I Just Forget’.
Deego then caught up with NME at the Mercury Prize in October. He said Fontaines had been working on “little bits of ideas individually”, and had some time scheduled “soon enough” to regroup and “share what we’ve been working on”. When asked what had been influencing him recently, he said: “Recently, I’ve been really getting into UK hardcore.”
