BREAKING: All Splendour Main Stages Cancelled For Day One

In a devastating blow to the music community, Splendour in the Grass have made the announcement that all main stage entertainement on the first day of their comeback event has been cancelled. With access issues following a huge rain event over the last 24 hours, organisers cancelled on-site parking and camping this morning, before making the heartbreaking announcement to suspend the first day's program this afternoon. 

The full statement is as follows:

A significant weather system is currently sitting off the east coast and may reach land later today bringing more rainfall. In the interest of patron safety and in consultation with all relevant emergency services, we have decided to err on the side of caution and cancel performances on the main stages today only– Amphitheatre, Mix Up, GW McLennan and Park(lands) Stages. All of our destination spaces (Global Village, Tipi Forest, Forum, Comedy and Science tents etc.) will remain open today for patrons who are already onsite as well as those at our satellite campground at Byron Events Farm. Please relax and enjoy what is open.

Day patrons are asked not to attend to the festival today while we work on repairs.

In the coming week Moshtix will be in contact with the ticket holders affected directly, via the email address used to purchase their ticket, for further information on refunds.We ask for patience while we work through the refund process.

Please be assured that our event team is working very hard to provide the best experience possible under the current circumstances.

We look forward to Saturday and Sunday programming moving ahead as planned.

The announcement came at around 1:50pm, with tens of thousands of patrons were already on-site. The cancellation will impact on the performances of Gorillaz, The Avalanches, Kacey Musgraves, DMA's and many more as organisers grapple with trying to ready the site to bring the rest of the weekend's entertainment to bear. 

The festival endured a tough night, with some patrons stuck in queues of traffic and those that managed to pitch their camp sites struggling to stay dry as the mud got worse in the unrelenting downpour. This year's Splendour was supposed to be a grand return for the event after being postponed twice since 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In what was to be its first event in three years, inclement weather and a spiking COVID wave impacting staffing numbers have combined to once again hamper the best intentions of organisers to create a comeback for large-scale music festivals in Australia.

Patrons, organisers and music fans everywhere have their fingers crossed that the rest of the weekend can procede. 

@SITG splendour in the mud ☔️#splendourinthegrass #Splendour #byron pic.twitter.com/nGzMQc9t8T

— Amanda Salmon (@amaandasalmon) July 22, 2022

Some scenes from the Splendour in the Ground campground this morning. @abcnews pic.twitter.com/SRH4oMuhQY

— Tobi Loftus (@tobiloftus) July 21, 2022