Splendour Is Offering Free Rides Home Tonight To Make Up For Yesterday’s Bus Issues

July 23, 2016

All bus rides home from North Byron Parklands tonight will be on Splendour In The Grass, following a bit of logistical drama yesterday.

Thousands of not-so-happy campers were left waiting for upwards of 3 hours for shuttles back to their festival base camps in Byron, Brunswick Heads, Ocean Shores, Suffolk Park and beyond.

“Riot squad police were on site as the first night of the festival near Byron Bay ended with big crowds hitting bottle-necked queues for buses without any explanation for the delay,” the ABC reported.

At the time – as complaints about the PT sitch on Splendour’s Facebook page reached a critical mass – organisers weighed in to assure fans that “We are doing everything we can to get you home as quickly and safely as possible”.

And today, they’ve posted a lengthy apology for the clusterfuck, explaining that they were blindsided by “a significant change in the numbers of people getting dropped off and collected from Splendour which threw our traffic plan into disarray”.

“We are re-working the traffic plan, relocating the drop off/collection area to the south of the carpark and giving right of way to our public transport system,” they added.

But still, they want you to know how soz they are for killing your buzz and making y’all waste precious kick-on time milling around for buses like a herd of nocturnal cattle, so – along with a heartfelt apology – the Splendour heads have also proclaimed that all bus rides home from the festival tonight shall be FOC.

“FREE RIDES TONIGHT!” a statement on their official Facebook page reads. “Your ride home on the Festival buses are on us – we can’t apologise enough for last night’s slow departure. If you have bus tickets for tonight that you have purchased from us, please take to the bus ticket or drink ticket windows for a refund (except Ballina and Lennox Head) x”

See guys, they haven’t foresaken you.

And think of it this way: all those hours you spent standing around were a great warm-up for The Cure’s sure-to-be-epic 3 hour set tonight!

Read the Splendour organisers’ full statement below.

The "line" for the buses at #SITG2016 been waiting for 65mins so far. Poor form #Splendour organisers @secretsounds pic.twitter.com/ojhl33RLmM

— BrigFee (@brigfeeney) July 22, 2016