Twitter and Instagram put Splendour in the Grass on social media stage

There was much that was splendid at sunny Splendour in the Grass last weekend — unless you were leaving by bus.

Jake Bugg followed up his festival performance with a show at Sydney’s State Theatre. Picture: AFP

It has been a slow withdrawal from the fun and games and spectacular weather at last weekend’s Splendour in the Grass festival, though SD was able to keep the vibe going with an extra dose of the excellent Jake Bugg at Sydney’s State Theatre on Tuesday.

Aside from being a showcase for a wealth of local and overseas talent, Splendour is a perfect example in 2016 of how social media plays such an important role in popular culture events, with Facebook, Twitter and Instagram among those relishing the attention during the three-day festival near Byron Bay in northern NSW. Twitter was keeping a tally on some of the most popular trends of tweeters over the weekend, including the most tweeted artist (Years and Years).

The word “bus” was among the most tweeted, though it is unlikely that it came attached to qualifiers such as “I’m so happy to be on this ---” or “the --- journey was an absolute joy”. That’s because, despite perfect conditions and plenty of planning by the organisers, patrons ended up in hours-long delays when trying to leave the festival site on Friday and Saturday nights and on Monday morning. Twitter didn’t keep tabs on the thousands of expletives that were bouncing around on its network during these periods, but the festival most certainly did.

Co-promoter Jess Ducrou told SD the problem stemmed from more people than in previous years being dropped off and picked up from the site each day. “We acknowledge that is a change in the way people are using the festival,” she said. “We do care and we’ll address it, like we do with everything.”

How many Michael Hutchence documentaries is too many? Three weeks ago Sydney entrepreneur Ron Creevey announced one, which he claims he has been planning for two years. Now come Universal Music Group and Passion Pictures with news that they are making one as well. Director Richard Lowenstein says he has been working on that one for many years. If so, it’s odd that his employers are only announcing it now. One wonders if they were caught unawares by Creevey’s media alert.