Just when things couldn’t feel any more bleak for Sydney-siders, Splendour in the Grass has announced that they’ve cancelled their Sydney pop-up event, Splendour in the City – only weeks after its start date was released.
Splendour in the Grass has just announced the cancellation of their Sydney pop-up festival, Splendour in the City, due to COVID-19 restrictions and uncertainty.
“With Greater Sydney currently in lockdown until 9 July and Covid outbreaks now evolving in other states, it has become impossible to progress with plans to move artists and staff around the country, and also to build the event in Sydney,” Splendour said in a statement.
“We also acknowledge the health and safety of staff, volunteers and ticketholders is the foremost consideration in line with the health advice from authorities.”
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The tragic news comes as COVID-19 outbreaks have been getting significantly worse in Sydney and spreading across the country. As of today, Sydney’s Bondi cluster has grown to 124 confirmed cases, with our list of exposure sites growing to a whopping 257.
“With the uncertainty around venue and artist availability in the coming months, and IRL Splendour in the Grass scheduled for November, we have made the difficult decision to cancel Splendour in the City rather than postpone it,” Splendour said.
Fans are obviously devastated, especially considering how much the live music scene was absolutely obliterated in March last year, when COVID was at its worse here.
“This is a heart-breaking situation for all the crew, supplies and artists that were working hard to deliver this event for Sydney,” said Jessica Ducrou, the Co-CEO of Secret Sounds.
“Splendour in the City was set to provide much needed income for our live music industry which has been devastated since March 2020. We want to thank all of the music lovers out there who purchased tickets. Your on-going support is very much appreciated.”
Not all is lost, though – Splendour XR, the world-first extended reality event by Splendour, is still on since being online makes it COVID-proof.
If you told us when we started the band that we’d eventually be headlining an immersive, virtual music festival experience, we would have said, “Huh?” See you on July 25th @splendourinthegrass! pic.twitter.com/R8alplAXxu
— The Killers (@thekillers) June 23, 2021
Splendour XR is basically an online festival set for the weekend of the 24th and 25th of July. The setlist is pretty fucking good, with the likes of Khalid, The Killers, Chvrches, Denzel Curry, Charlie XCX, and Aurora. You can see the whole list of performers here.
Moshtix will start refunding tickets for Splendour in the City from Tuesday 29 June, but expect delays and a long wait because of how many orders they have to process.
