Splendor in the Grass campers have been left in the dark once again as festival organizers scramble to respond to thousands of refund requests.
After waiting three years for her chance, Victoria Dennis never made it to the Splendor in the Grass festival grounds near Byron Bay in NSW.
He arrived in an already jam-packed queue that entered the festival camps around 6pm on Thursday.
“Everything went well until they arrived at 2am and we’d barely got the line up,” Ms Dennis said.
Finally, the volunteers told her and her friends to settle in for the night and sleep in their car.
In the morning, they were told they would have to camp where they had been standing in line: a field of sparse grass already soaked from a day of rain.
“The sites were disgusting as everyone had been urinating outside their cars in the mud where we had to camp,” Ms Dennis said.
Sometime after 10am, after setting up camp in the mud, they were told they would be moved off-site to the Byron Events Farm campsite.
Campers staying at the site would later report queuing for buses in and out of the festival for up to four hours on Saturday, with many missing a large part of the festival schedule.
When the first day of the festival was canceled at midday, the girls decided to cut their losses and traveled north to the Gold Coast to save the weekend.
“We were worried they would cancel the next day as well and we couldn’t rely on the organizers’ miscommunication, so we had to make the decision and cut our losses,” said Dennis.
She was among the ticket holders who received an email from Moshtix on Monday, July 25, confirming they were eligible for a partial refund.
Prorated refunds will be automatically charged over the next few weeks, including $133 for three-day event tickets, $199 for three-day VIP Village tickets, and $67 for three-day upgrade tickets of VIP towns.
Moshtix has told customers to allow up to four weeks for the refund to be processed.
It is not known if anyone is receiving refunds for camping or parking tickets.
However, Ms Dennis has contacted Moshtix to request a full refund of all her tickets.
Kayne Ensten drove more than 21 hours from Adelaide to North Byron Parklands to camp ahead of the three-day festival.
At 7am on Friday, he and his friends were told to find alternative accommodation.
He was lucky to find one of the few remaining Airbnbs in Byron Bay, but paid $2210 to secure it at the last minute.
Ensten also hopes to get at least a partial refund for his three days of camping, parking and festival tickets, as well as bus tickets and access to the VIP village.
For those forced to abandon camps and stay in nearby villages, hours-long bus queues made getting into the festival a frustrating ordeal.
Instead, many ditched their prepaid bus tickets and reportedly paid $100-$200 to Uber there from the festival.
Jesse Howes said he was seeking a full refund on principle.
“My partner is pregnant and there’s no way this place was safe for her, never mind families and children,” Howes said.
She has emailed Splendor in the Grass detailing her complaint and requested a refund.
A generic email redirected him to submit a request to MoshTix, the ticket provider for the festival.
When she emailed them, she received another generic response explaining that event organizers have already approved and issued refunds to patrons who were “most affected.”
“We understand that conditions at Splendor in the Grass 2022 were not perfect,” the email said.
“Only contacted account holders can receive a refund.”
Mr Howes is not among those contacted.
Co-executive directors Jessica Ducrou and Paul Piticco sent a statement via email to select ticket holders to express their apologies for the “inconvenience.”
“We apologize for any inconvenience you may have experienced at our 20th Splendor,” they said.
“As always, we tried to provide the best possible experience in extremely difficult conditions.
“We thank all the patrons who held onto their tickets for so long.
“We also give recognition to all the first attendees of the festival and those who had not previously experienced any event affected by the rain. We understand that it was a lot.”
Splendor in the Grass and Moshtix were contacted for comment.