Splendour Sells Out
Hopes were raised, dashed, raised again, dashed, raised some more, before finally giving way to tears or cheers for thousands of would-be Splendour In The Grass-goers today. Tickets have officially sold out for the Byron Bay festival, but it was no thanks to a new ticketing system that left many with nothing to show for up to 8 hours of waiting.
Amid the fiasco were claims of technical errors, people being charged twice for one transaction, and others being temporarily blocked from the site because they refreshed the page 3 times, despite this not occuring.
At the centre of all this was a company called QJUMP, who, in conjunction with the St George Bank, seemed to deliver one cock up after the other.
Despite the illusion that QJUMP had placed you in a queue, being able to purchase tickets became random at best. Some waited hours for nothing, others trying for 10 minutes and being successful.
A bank error early in the day added to the frustration, and the stream of people getting through became a trickle for apparently the best part of a couple of hours. This was unkown to the punters who were already getting angry. This affected the QJUMP site, with people getting through, and upon trying to complete a purchase were booted off and had to start again.
The frustration became plain anger for many when, haing waited for an extended time in the line, they got through only to find parts of the site not functioning, and they also were booted off the site.
For most it didnt even come to this, some unable to even get into the line despite attempting to for several hours.
All in all, a very disappointing shambles of events.
For those that got tickets, there is now a couple of months of excitement until acts such as Devo, Vampire Weekend and Sigur Ros take the stage.
For the rest, there is a lingering resentment that may prove to be (deservedly) the downfall of QJUMP, and leaves Splendour Organisers with a lot of cleaning up to do…
