Avid music fan Kate Raftery at EP with her mother Michelle. Picture: Michelle Raftery

An autistic woman has said her "heart broke in a gazillion pieces" when she saw the main accessible platform at Electric Picnic was next to the toilets this year.

Kate Raftery felt “excluded” and she called on the organisers to meet people with disabilities before next year’s festival for better planning.

This was Kate’s second EP but she felt distressed instead of enjoying the music as freely as she did in 2025.

She said problems started last Friday when an official festival map showed an incorrect location for this platform.

When they tracked it down, she said: “We were between queues for the bar and the toilets. We couldn’t get in sometimes, people thought we were skipping the queues.

“My heart dropped, I was crying and my heart broke in a gazillion pieces.” 

In addition, it had two spotlights attached to light up pathways around the toilets, leaving Kate and others disorientated by the brightness.

One was switched off after people raised concerns but the area remained far brighter than usual, she added. 

She is a big music fan and regularly goes to gigs, saying: “The accessibility was so good last year (at EP), we were praising it to everyone. 

"You didn’t feel like you had a disability, you were part of the crowds.” 

This year she still managed to enjoy acts on the smaller stages especially Audrey Hobert, but was often so distressed from the main area she needed to take breaks instead. 

“I love music,” she said, adding she has emailed organisers Festival Republic about these issues.

Kate is considering setting up a committee to lobby for better accessibility at music gigs and festivals. 

Her mother Michelle was with her at EP. The pair run a popular Instagram account with almost 18,000 followers called @juzt2girls.

Source: Read the original article on www.irishexaminer.com

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