The organisers of Byron Bay's 2022 Splendour in the Grass music festival were told all ticket holders under the age of 18 would have to be accompanied by an adult almost a month ago, despite telling the public they were only informed last week.
The festival did not directly inform all ticket holders of the rule, which was not included in the original terms and conditions, until the day the deadline for reselling tickets expired.
Under 18-year-olds planning to attend the festival, which attracts about 50,000 concert-goers each year, were left scrambling on Monday to find people prepared to fork out between $200 and $420 to chaperone them throughout the three-day festival, which begins on 22 July.
Tickets had sold out for the festival back in December 2021, but those who bought tickets, some as far back as late 2019 (as the 2020 and 2021 festivals were cancelled due to Covid-19), who were subsequently unable to attend the 2022 event were able to legally offer up their tickets for resale online up until midnight on 11 July - the same day festival organisers announced a "new" rule had been imposed on them by NSW Police and liquor licensing authorities.
A representative of the festival told ABC's Triple J on 12 July that the under-18s rule had "suddenly become an issue now".
In a statement a day earlier, organisers said "we were only informed of this late Thursday" and that they were "very unhappy about these major changes being forced on the festival at such a late stage".
But on 16 June this year, the Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority, NSW Liquor & Gaming and Police NSW convened a roundtable meeting with Splendour organisers, to discuss how the festival would comply with legislative changes introduced more than two years earlier.
In November 2019, an under-18s supervision rule at music festivals deemed "at risk" of safety breaches for young people was assented in the NSW parliament.
On Thursday, the Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority confirmed the 16 June meeting in a statement sent to Guardian Australia.
"The condition to require minors to be accompanied by a responsible adult is not a last-minute change - it is an obligation under the law and was agreed to at a meeting with the festival organisers, NSW Police, Liquor & Gaming NSW and ILGA on 16 June," the statement said.
"NSW Police and ILGA both fully support the need for this condition. Any suggestion to the contrary is false."
When asked why the festival appeared unaware of legislative changes made more than two years earlier, that were then directly re-emphasised by police and liquor licensing authorities to the festival organisers a month ago, a Splendour spokesperson said the festival believed it was not a "subject" festival - one deemed a safety risk - under the 2019 Music Festivals Act, when tickets for this event first went on sale.
On 4 June 2020, the festival was notified by government authorities that it had been classified as subject to the new liquor licensing rules. Despite this, the festival told Guardian Australia it assumed it could continue operating under its existing licence, which allows 16 and 17-year-olds to attend without being accompanied by a responsible adult.
In a submission by Police NSW, it was recommended to ILGA that Splendour's licence be conditional on all persons under 18 be accompanied by a responsible adult, similar to any other licensed premises.
"However Splendour did not accept these recommendations, which is our right, based on precedent and no history of reported breaches on our liquor licence," the Splendour spokesperson said.
The festival was not told the ILGA had accepted the NSW Police recommendation until 7 July 2022, the spokesperson claimed.
The ILGA disputes this however, saying that on 7 July the festival was informed that the health and safety plan it had submitted still failed to address the issue of supervising under-18s in a licensed premise. This requirement had been emphasised to the festival organisers at the 16 June meeting, ILGA said.
An ILGA spokesperson said Splendour was expected to operate the same as any entertainment venue where alcohol is sold.
"The entire festival area is licensed, it is akin to one giant open-air pub," the spokesperson said. "The risks for minors mingling unsupervised in this environment are obvious."
The festival organisers denied that they had failed to inform ticket holders before the cut off day for reselling tickets about the under-18 rule.
"We informed 16 and 17-year-old ticketholders direct late Friday 8 July once we had processes in place to assist with managing these enquiries," the statement said.
But this was an email sent to targeted ticket holders by the ticketing agency Moshtix, not Splendour in the Grass organisers, who didn't issue a public statement about the under-18 rule until the following Monday.
When asked if ticket holders under 18 who are unable to find a suitable chaperone less than two weeks out from the festival would be eligible for a refund, the festival said it had established a support service through Moshtix to manage enquiries and these would be reviewed on "a case by case basis".
