Irish Promoter and Electric Picnic Founder John Reynolds Dies Aged 52

Conal McSweeney – Electric Picnic 2018
John Reynolds founded the festival in 2004

John Reynolds, one of Ireland’s leading independent promoters, passed away on Thursday, Oct. 25, at the age of 52.

A media statement issued on behalf of the Reynolds family reads: “It is with great sadness that the Reynolds family confirm the sudden death of John Reynolds of POD on Thursday 25th October.

 

“John aged 52 years, who was one of Ireland’s leading independent festival and concert promoters, died suddenly at his home in Milltown, Dublin.

 

“Funeral arrangements will be announced in the coming days. The family have requested privacy at this time.”

 

Screenshot from Nialler9.com – John Reynolds
One of Ireland’s leading independent promoters passed away

Reynolds is the founder of concert and festival promoter Pod Concerts, which owns All Together Now festival at Curraghmore Estate in the Irish county of Waterford, as well as Forbidden Fruit and Metropolis festivals, which both take place in country’s capital, Dublin. The next edition of Metropolis, which is scheduled for Oct. 27-28 at the RDS, Dublin, will go ahead.

Over the past 25 years, Pod brought artist including Leonard Cohen, Prince, Blur, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Destiny’s Child, Adele, Daft Punk, Morrissey, Kraftwerk, Iggy & The Stooges, Patti Smith, The xx, Bon Iver, Ennio Morricone, Underworld, Tame Impala, Lcd Soundsystem, Aphex Twin, Carl Cox, Eddie Izzard and many more to Ireland.

Reynolds used to co-manage Ireland’s most famous boyband, Boyzone, alongside Louis Walsh, and operated the famous POD Nightclub on Harcourt Street in Dublin.

Reynolds founded Ireland’s most famous festival, Electric Picnic, in 2004. He’s credited with having understood the appeal of a boutique event years before ‘experience’ became the industry’s buzzword.

“Reynolds does his research, travelling to clubs, festivals and venues around the world in search of ideas to bring home to increasingly sophisticated Irish punters. He has a global understanding of the entertainment business, and this puts him in an ideal position to bring new ideas into the Irish scene,” a profile piece on Reynolds in The Irish Times from 2008 reads.

Electric Picnic got fully acquired by Live Nation’s Festival Republic in 2014.

John Reynolds attended Castleknock College 1978-84. When he decided to become a promoter, he decided to join a family tradition: his father Jim Reynolds and uncle Albert Reynolds “ran a dancehall empire that stretched from Longford to Limerick, and included the Jetland ballroom in Limerick, the Roseland in Athy and the Dreamland in Moate.”

James Vincent McMorrow tweeted: “Just heard about John Reynolds, my condolences 2 his family & friends. U may not have heard of John before, but if u’ve been 2 Electric Picnic, Forbidden Fruit, shows at Pod Venues in dublin, then u know John’s work. He gave me a lot of shows when i was starting out. So sad. RIP”

John Carroll wrote on rte.ie: “John displayed more imagination, energy, enthusiasm, spirit and crazy unique ideas before breakfast than many of his peers do in a lifetime. Music may have been his main game, but he was informed by art, design, architecture, football and dozens of other things. 

“Like the very best people, he was a relentless optimist, someone who battled and pushed and strived with an idea long after the rest of us would have given up.

“As a promoter, it was about the experience – putting on a string of best-nights-out – more than he business. He had that vision thing – and he drove some of us crazy with that f**king vision thing.”