Selwyn Sounds ‘chaotic’, punters say
A Canterbury festival organiser says changes will be made for 2019 after revellers describe Saturday’s event as ‘‘poorly organised’’ and ‘‘chaotic’’.
The Selwyn Sounds music festival, which featured eight bands and was headlined by Australian rocker Jimmy Barnes at Lincoln Domain, was attended by just under 10,000 people – about 2500 more than the inaugural event last year.
Festival-goers had to queue for more than an hour to buy drinks and all alcoholic beverages were sold out by about 5pm – three-anda-half hours before the event’s end.
Daniel Hope, who also attended the event in 2017, said Saturday’s event was ‘‘chaotic’’ and completely different to last year’s.
‘‘It almost seemed as if it was organised by a completely different outfit.
‘‘Having the one drinks tent over in the back right corner was just a mess.’’
He said people were getting frustrated as they queued for drinks for ‘‘well over an hour’’ in lines that were poorly managed until barriers were set up hours into the event.
‘‘Last year they had the two drinks tents on either side. I don’t recall waiting for more than five minutes to get a drink last year.’’
He said around 2pm, three hours into the festival, the sponsored alcoholic beverage had sold out and an hour later and the primary beer ran out. The rest of the alcoholic beverages sold out about 5pm.
‘‘Things that frustrated myself and a lot of people I spoke to was a lack of organisation to begin with and a lack of co-ordination and information.
‘‘It was just genuinely a disappointment after the success of last year.’’
Revellers also voiced their disappointment on social media: ‘‘It really isn’t good enough.
Last year you had drink stations on both sides. You knew this year would be bigger and yet you have catered for less,’’ wrote Melanie Sherborne Putt on Facebook.
Sonia Haugh said: ‘‘Bad organisation for getting a drink, an hour wait is just stupid and not what you want to be doing.’’
Event organiser David Parlane said he recognised there were issues with this year’s festival and they would be addressed ahead of next year’s.
‘‘We made some learnings yesterday. We have to do some things differently next year, we need to change the way people queue for beer.’’
He said the second bar, which was removed due to not being used last year, would return next year, and more alcoholic beverages would be ordered and more bar staff would be appointed to meet demand.
‘‘From last year our numbers went up by 2500, so we increased our order by 40 per cent and that still wasn’t enough. If we’d got the queueing right and the booze order right the day would have been perfect.’’
Parlane said the third edition of the festival will be back ‘‘bigger, brighter and better’’ in 2019.