With numerous issues plaguing last year’s Splendour in the Grass (SITG) event, The Echo asked organisers, Secret Sounds, how the event will be managed differently this year.
In 2022, SITG organisers attracted criticism over how the event was handled, with traffic management, long queues and patron safety being some of the issues. The 2022 event was also hampered by heavy weather.
Elise Huntley, Managing Director Festivals of Secret Sounds, told The Echo, ‘We have invested enormous amounts of time and money over the last six months to upgrade the venue, and our processes, and will continue to do so, right up until Splendour 2023’.
Huntley says some improvements include, ‘weather proofing upgrades to the venue, such as wider walkways, and hard surfaces in key traffic areas around the toilets and amenity blocks; enhanced drainage throughout the site, with a focus on the event area and campgrounds; easier terrain to move around, including more pathways and easier access to stages and destination venues; comprehensive onsite weather management processes, including significant onsite materials and equipment to immediately address unexpected weather conditions; improved communications with the local community before, during and after the event; and compliance from the bus companies to deliver on their agreed service levels’.
SITG’s Traffic Management Plan has also been reviewed, she says, ‘with 2022 learnings in consultation with experts and independent auditors, including [Council’s] Local Traffic Committee’.
‘Some of the changes that will be implemented are additional camping vehicle entry points to the venue; a revised camping vehicle pass system that includes specific days, entry points and timings for arrivals; amended campgrounds load schedule and processing; and improving our workforce levels and enhancing staff, volunteer, and worker facilities for staying and working onsite’.
Audit tabled
At last Thursday’s Council meeting, Cr Mark Swivel told councillors that he recently attended the Regulatory Working Group (RWG) meeting, where an audit report on last years’ event was tabled.
What’s a Regulatory Working Group?
According to North Byron Parklands’ website, Regulatory Working Group (RWGs) have been ‘operating for many years to review environmental management and community relations’. Members include representatives from the police, emergency services, Byron and Tweed councils, government agencies and community members.
Managers of the North Byron Parklands, where the festival is held, provided The Echo with the minutes of RWG meeting (March 27, 2023) and the audit upon request.
According to the RWG minutes, ‘In October 2022 the NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment formally requested North Byron Parklands conduct an independent audit of consent conditions earlier than scheduled in the light of SITG22 issues’.
Within the 141-page North Byron Parklands Independent Audit 2022, authors, Continual Improvement Solutions, say 199 criteria were applied to North Byron Parklands, and they were compliant with 154 of them, non-compliant with four, and 41 ‘not triggered’.
Among the four non-compliant performance criteria found inadequate by the auditors, was ‘Monitoring equipment setup, operation and maintenance of flood monitoring equipment [that] did not fully meet the requirements of the consent’, and that ‘SITG22 failed to meet its traffic key performance indicators (KPIs) on Thursday July 21, 2022 (camper bump-in day)’.
The report reads on page 13, ‘One of the more impacted segments of the community resulting from the traffic non-conformance at SITG22 were school children and their families. As part of the executed EU, NBP has donated the sum of $10,000 to each of the […] beneficiaries (primary/secondary schools) located within a 10km radius of the venue’.
SITG capacity to remain at 50,000
Capacity numbers will remain (at 50,000 patrons over five days), Parkland’s manager, Mat Morris, told the RWG meeting, saying the ‘DPE were happy with the independent audit, and as a result of revised management plans, have not enforced a reduction’.
‘The funds are to be spent at the discretion of each school on goods and services that support and improve learning outcomes for their students. No other agency notices, orders, penalty notices or prosecutions were recorded during the audit period’.
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