The organisers of the Splendour in the Grass festival are campaigning to bring the event back on New South Wales soil, after this year having their temporary set up in Woodford, Queensland.
As one of the landowners of North Byron Parklands, a massive 660 acre site in the Byron Shire, Splendour in the Grass has been working hard for the past few years to gain approval for the land to become a permanent and sustainable cultural event venue and the Splendour festival’s permanent home.
This year, 2010, saw the festival moved up to Woodford in Queensland in a temporary set up, as the previous site at the Belongil Fields in Byron was being rezoned for residential development.
There is a strong sense of unity in the environmental conscious community, and the event organisers share this sentiment. A small group of people, including Splendour in the Grass owners Jessica Ducrou and Paul Piticco, formed the Billinudgel Property Trust in 2006 with the vision of creating a socially and environmentally viable home for events and celebrations in the Northern Rivers.
The proposed space needed to have all the luxuries of civilisation such as being near a major highway, but with minimal neighbours and be large enough to host major events, but have enough room to allow nature to flourish, untainted.
In fact, they propose that because of the sheer size of the space, the land will only experience little to no activity for a great majority of the year- with the space only being open for events for a maximum of 20 days per calendar year. Of this proposed 20 days, only 12 days are proposed for major events, and Splendour in the Grass would occupy only three of those allocated days.
There is a lot to argue about bringing the festival back in NSW and finding a permanent home to host the event. You can help by making a submission to the NSW Department of Planning via the Splendour website. They make it simple for you, by providing arguments that you can click to add into your submission. If there is some other reason that you feel strongly for and wish to include in your submission, you may also do so through the online form. Let’s bring Splendour home.
