Splendor In The Grass has apologized for the lengthy bus delays which affected punters leaving the festival on Saturday night, with some enduring queues of up to four hours.
After Friday’s cancellation, weather conditions improved on Saturday as huge crowds turned out for acts including The Jungle Giants, Violent Soho, Jack Harlow and headliners The Strokes. But when home time rolled around, things got messy.
“It’s 4am. We’ve been waiting for a bus outside Splendor in The Grass for 4.5 hours,” complained one TikTok user. “Not to mention it’s a PRE-BOOKED bus ticket…as if I knew how many people needed to get home.”
“Not to mention the first 3 hours in line was just a confused mass of people with no directions or instructions,” they wrote in a follow-up.
Punters on social media criticized the excessive waiting times, lack of communication and direction. Others reported getting home as late as 6 a.m., while rideshare costs soared between $100 and $250, according to Pedestrian.
“We waited 4 hours in line for a bus and moved 20 meters,” another user posted. “We ended up walking to our campsite which was an hour’s walk away.”
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Responding to the chaos in a statement on Sunday morning, Splendor In The Grass wrote: “We hear you and understand your frustration with our bus services last night.”
“Our event venue closes at 2am and 90% of our bus customers were off site by 3:30am, just like 2019,” the post continued.
“Unfortunately, some of our Tweed routes experienced extended delays due to a shortage of bus drivers. We estimate that approximately 1,000 people were affected.”
“We are doing everything we can to secure extra services for tonight’s departure, which is challenging in the current climate.”
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The festival’s post has been slammed as “bullshit” and “gas lighting” by ticket holders in the comments:
- “Just tweed? Don’t lie to us, I was stuck in that hell hole for almost three hours trying to get to Ballina. No water, no toilets, no control over people passing out.”
- “This post is absolute crap. Get on the bus at 3am to Byron and there were still 1000 people waiting in line in the cold and mud.”
- “Unbelievably unprepared. I don’t know where this statistic comes from as the bus drivers weren’t checking passes, and I only saw a bare minimum of volunteers doing their best to handle a crappy situation. Insignificant security or paid staff on sight”.
- “How do you expect 1000 people to be affected when there wasn’t even a staff to deal with us…”.
- “Not good enough. I left at 11.30pm and got on a bus at 3am. There were still about 10,000 people behind me at this point. People were collapsing in the lines… this is a gross understatement of what actually happened.”
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The three-day music festival has been full of problems this weekend.
Campers arriving at the event on Friday faced 12-hour queues to get to the venue before Splendor canceled all main stage performances due to safety concerns due to wild weather and flooding at the venue of North Byron Parklands.
“In the interest of patron safety and in consultation with all relevant emergency services, we have decided to err on the side of caution and cancel performances on the main stages today only,” Splendor organizers wrote in a statement .
The hapless ticket holders, who had struggled through ankle-deep mud and miserable conditions, were promised refunds. Thousands of camping pass holders were turned away and redirected to an alternative site and offered free shuttle services to get people to the ground.
Splendor co-founder Jessica Ducrou says it’s been the “worst weather” the festival has experienced in its 21-year history, as well as working against staff and transport shortages.
“We’ve had muddy events before, it’s not new to us, but I think the amount of rain that the northern rivers have received over the last six months has made it very difficult,” he told ABC News.
“Everyone is working as hard as they can to make this an experience they deserve, but it’s very difficult conditions.”
Splendor In The Grass continues today (July 24). Tyler the Creator is set to headline tonight after preview performances from Amyl & The Sniffers, Mura Masa, Duke Dumont, Genesis Owusu, G Flip, Holly Humberstone, King Stingray and Unearthed songwriting winner Elsy Wameyo .
Posted 2 hours ago, 2 hours ago, Wed. July 24, 2022 at 03:43, updated 2 hours ago, 2 hours ago, Sun. July 24, 2022 at 03:43