Splendour in the Grass
| Splendour in the Grass | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Rock, Hip hop, Electronic, Alternative |
| Dates | Late July - early August |
| Location(s) |  Australia
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| Years active | 2001 - present |
| Website | Official Website |
Splendour in the Grass is an annual music festival held in July at Belongil Fields, outside Byron Bay, New South Wales, Australia. Promoted by Village Sounds and Secret Service, the festival began in 2001 as one-day event and soon evolved into a two-day event in the following 2002 festival. The festival title was taken from English poet William Wordsworth's "Ode: Intimations of Immortality". With a current capacity of 30,000, Splendour in the Grass is generally considered to be the country's largest winter music festival, and, as it does not tour round from city to city, it attracts a large number of visitors from interstate.
Ticketing Issues
The 2005 festival sold out its 14,000 tickets in a record time of 26 hours. Soon after the sell-out, festival tickets that initially cost $125 were offered on eBay at inflated prices of up to $3000. Lawyers for the festival organisers responded by sending cease and desist letters to eBay and some 150 ticket resellers, citing a breach of the conditions of sale. However, eBay refused to block the ticket auctions, claiming it was the seller's responsibility to ensure that they have the ability and right to sell products. Radio station Triple J encouraged its listeners to sabotage the bidding process and disgruntled music fans responded, listing bogus bids of up to $10,000 in protest against ticket scalping.[1]
After much media coverage, the NSW Department of Fair Trading became involved in the issue and met with eBay representatives. The then Fair Trading Minister, John Hatzistergos, instructed the Office of Fair Trading to investigate the reselling of tickets and determine whether resellers were in breach of the Fair Trading Act. Festival promoters hope the investigation will result in changes to event ticketing by way of the introduction of anti-ticket scalping legislation.
In response to the events of 2005, organisers altered the ticketing system for the 2006 festival in the hope of stamping out ticket scalping. In an unprecedented move, ticket buyers were required to register their name and date of birth at the time of purchase. These details were printed on the event tickets, which had to be provided with valid identification in order to gain admission to the festival. Tickets to the 2006 festival went on sale at 9AM on Monday 15 May 2006. All camping tickets to the weekend event sold out within three hours, and all general admission tickets sold out after 48 hours. The 2006 festival was held on the weekend of 22-23 July.
The 2007 festival sold out in its first release by 2.25pm on the first day, approximately 5 hours and 25 mins after being released.
2008 would be festival goers were frustrated by difficulties obtaining tickets from ticketing provider Qjump, resulting in many missing out on tickets, despite waiting many hours [citation needed].
Qjump later issued an apology on the Splendour forum saying, "We would like to sincerely apologise to everyone affected by the issues experienced with the online sales of Splendour in the Grass tickets. We understand and acknowledge the frustrating time that many Splendour fans have experienced. Unfortunately an issue with the bank’s payment gateway prevented some customers who had successfully queued from completing their purchase of tickets. Our team has been working around the clock to respond to each and every email and call. We hope you can be patient with us while we complete this process. The demand for tickets far outweighed supply, with over 70,000 people trying to purchase 17,500 tickets and for many people the problems encountered with the queue and payment gateway meant that people were kept waiting for several hours only to miss out. For that we are very sorry."
2009 Festival
On 31 July 2008, Byron Shire Council moved to approve the DA from Splendour in the Grass organisers to hold a one off trial event at Yelgun in 2009.
That development consent was the subject a challenge in the New South Wales Land and Environment Court by a group of residents and environmentalist and the Environmental Defenders Office of NSW. The Chief Judge of the Land and Environment Court, Justice Brian Preston, ruled that Byron Shire Council had exceeded its powers by granting the development consent where the land included parts zoned for conservation purposes. The development consent was ruled invalid, prohibiting the festival from being held at the new Yelgun site[2].
As a consequence, the festival remained at the Belongil site in 2009.
Artist lineups by year
2001
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2002
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2003
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2004
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2005
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2006
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2007
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2008
2009
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2010
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References
- ^ Murray, Lisa (2005-05-13). "Music fans bombard scalpers on website". Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 2009-05-01.
{{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ http://www.lawlink.nsw.gov.au/lecjudgments/2009nswlec.nsf/2009nswlec.nsf/WebView2/D7000E6D8FF17E58CA2575B3001AB01B?OpenDocument