Byron Shire Council tackles 2022 Splendour in the Grass fallout

Overflowing toilets, traffic, litter and general inconvenience for local residents. Byron Shire Council looks at what went wrong at this year’s Splendour in the Grass festival.

Issues arising from the Splendour in the Grass music festival - not least of which the litter left on the ground - have been examined by Byron Shire Council.

Councillors were generally unimpressed by the rain-hit event, and were alarmed by the number of festival-goers who sustained injury.

Other identified issues were the use of untrained security staff, inadequate crowd management systems, first aid unavailability and poor medical support.

Byron Shire Senior Citizen of the Year, Kathy Norley, told council’s Thursday meeting the event had resulted in the North Byron Parklands being “trashed” and “overused”.

“Everything went wrong”, she said, “if we had another rain event, where would the trash from the festival have gone? It will go into our rivers and beaches.”

Splendour in the Grass 2022. Picture: Savannah Pocock

“We (Byron Bay locals) are the ones paying the taxes to maintain this area.”

Splendour in the Grass 2022 event manager Elise Huntley said the negative impacts were “unprecedented”, and could be traced back to the foul weather which forced organisers to cancel much of the first day’s entertainment.

Splendour in the Grass grounds.

“This was an abnormal event and we are planning on how we can do Splendour in the Grass better moving forward,” she said.

Ms Huntley said there was around 45,000 people on site, with 70 injuries recorded.

Quizzed about the price of bus tickets to the event ($30), and long wait times for transport, Ms Huntley told council the organisers were not “money gouging”.

Crowds smiling as the sun came out eventually at Splendour in the Grass 2022. Picture: Matt Gazy

“This is the reality of the price of the bus service and the amount of bus drivers we requested did not show up,” she said.

Council plans to raise its concerns about the festival with Planning Minister Anthony Roberts, and with the Independent Planning Commission.

According to council’s agenda paper, negative impacts from the 2022 event included traffic queues, and local traffic disruptions.

Council also expressed concern over a spate of injuries sustained by punters - from broken bones and sprains to staph infections brought on by the muddy conditions.

Covid too was at play - with some 30 cases traced to the festival.

Council also called out the inadequacy of the onsite sewage management system as patrons’ witnessed overflowing toilets, which led to urination and defecation outside of the toilet areas due to the high water flow across the site.