Regarding last week’s Splendour Festival and all the ‘haters’ out there. I took along a few seriously fun-deprived teenage boys. It was the most amazing time they had had in this, the dawn of their social and festival lives. After three years in isolation, and the ‘apocalypse’, it was a watershed moment in time for them and many other young people who have finally escaped isolation, floods, and the lack of communal events.
There are problems with the Splendour site and all those who have jumped on ‘Moan Book’ for their say. Most of them didn’t attend of course but have an opinion on the event. Sue Higginson has been on the soapbox all this week about the work the Environmental Defender’s Office (EDO) did trying to stop the approval back in 2002. And power to her and those that did see the problems that may arise and the threat to wildlife.
The kids at the event were exemplary, the youth of today are amazingly well behaved. They were so polite and well behaved, mostly un-drugged and not drunk from what I saw. I was starting to worry about them. All so compliant.
Overall I had a ball at the festival. The mud was kind of off-putting at first but once we got into the swing it just became part of the experience. Why were people whining so much in the last week? Why weren’t they moaning three or four years ago when it was all happening, sans mud? Why now? Because the media picked up the mud story to put on its endless boring news cycle. Yes there is the wildlife corridor, fair enough and Sue Higginson did fight as part of the EDO. Good on her for trying to get a better outcome for the site originally but it’s been there for years.
Wherever you put such a large festival is a problem for the environment unless we all go to Sydney Olympic Park stadium. Apparently the site has had considerable environmental rehabilitation and bush regeneration on it.
We can move it to Casino or elsewhere, but Byron business and the youth have suffered the last few years and we all really needed to have some fun – mission accomplished. It was a wonderful event and mostly well enjoyed. Rant over.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
