Splendour moves to Woodford in 2010

25 November 2009 by Richard Wilson

Organisers of the annual Splendour in the Grass festival, which for nine years has taken place at Belongil Fields in Byron Bay, have today announced that for the festival's 10th anniversary they will be moving to the Woodford Folk Festival site in Queensland.

Alongside the move will be the introduction of a third night of music. And like Woodford Folk Festival, the new site will be able to accommodate camping for virtually every attendee.

The move comes after delays with approval on the Byron Parklands site in Yungun, which organisers hope to have host the festival at in the future. The original site of Belongil Fields has been rezoned for development.

 "Woodford Folk Festival and their beautiful site Woodfordia have been a great source of inspiration to us and we feel honoured to borrow their home," said Jessica Ducrou, organiser of Splendour in the Grass.

"We have a great opportunity to grow our event and give people better access to the festival but at the same time keep Splendour In The Grass a unique and personal experience," said Jessica Ducrou. "Given the size of the venue we will be able to accommodate almost all festival patrons in camping grounds onsite, giving more people the full festival experience."

"The purpose built venue also means that we can incorporate a broader range of arts and cultural experiences, which we have been wanting to do for many years."

"Having one of Australia's premier contemporary music events at Woodfordia will be a privilege," said Bill Hauritz, Director of Woodford Folk Festival. "Splendour is one of the best managed events I have observed, they are responsible, caring and disciplined organisers. We can expect the best."

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Forum Comments

Posted by ghoti-max at 10:36am, 25 Nov 09

This is awesome news. It's going to do great things for Woodford having some extra cash coming through and will be an awesome place to host Splendour. I reckon this would even make me interested to actually go next year...the Amphi would be awesome when it's actually packed out with a big name band headlining...would be awesome to see.

Posted by Richard at 11:23am, 25 Nov 09

I totally said a year ago that Woodford needed to bring on board an outside group to hold a mainstream/youth-oriented festival on the site to give the site some profitable purpose at another time of the year. Grrr... I was gonna make millions...

But yeah, this might be a goer!

Wondering what ticket sales will be like and whether they'll still be impossible to get ahold of. Belongil was something like 17,500. As I understand it, Woodford pushes around 30,000 on New Year's Eve.

Posted by ghoti-max at 11:31am, 25 Nov 09

Reckon they'll cap ticket sales or fill Woodford to capacity? It's three days too which is the other reason I was never going to bother with Splendour again...a two day festival just isn't worth the effort to make that trip.

Posted by rachel at 11:51am, 25 Nov 09

Imagine what the 'back in Maleny days' people will say!

This is actually making me tempted to go to Splendour for the first time ever, especially since I'm going to be missing my dose of Woodford this New Years. Hopefully the distance from civilisation (if you can call Byron civilisation...) will scare away some of the fluro wankers.

Posted by ghoti-max at 11:58am, 25 Nov 09

Yeah, for some reason I thought the jerk-wad factor would be decreased by the Woodford move too...unfortunately, it's still Splendour...so they'll whack on their Triple J based line-up and the same ol folk will make their way along. But maybe you're right Rach, Byron is probably one of the bigger aspects of the festival that attracts people. I'm pretty keen though.

Posted by Richard at 12:03pm, 25 Nov 09

Not only the distance from places, but the lack of holiday houses etc. in the area should scare away plenty that need somewhere to plug in their hairdryers.

Looks like it's a two year deal. Reckon they'll definitely go for something like 25,000+...

I'd say I'm keen but it'll be lineup dependent... remember they've been getting more and more ordinary lineups in recent years. If they actually put the extra money from extra attendance and camping into bringing out some actual big names I'll be very keen.

Posted by ghoti-max at 12:05pm, 25 Nov 09

OMG ARE YOU SERIOUS! ORDINARY LINE-UPS!!!???

Where else are you going to see the hit-single free-of-substance flavour-of-the-month acts that disappear in two years time!!??? Mumford & Sons will probably be there next year!!!

AHHHHHH!!!