Splendour In The Grass Under Fire As Triple J Question Their Ticket Resale Fees

triple j’s Hack has questioned Splendour in the Grass about its ticket resale fees, after the festival was blasted by punters for this year’s increased costs.

With the 2018 edition of Splendour — which sees Kendrick Lamar, Vampire Weekend and Lorde headline — selling out in mere minutes, the only festival-sanctioned way to nab (or sell) a ticket is through the official resale facility on Moshtix.

This isn’t new, but, as Hack reporter Ange McCormack points out, the fee hike sure is. For this year’s buyers, the fee has shifted from a flat $20 rate to 10 per cent of each ticket price, plus booking fees. For a three day ticket (which costs $399), that’s a $39.90 fee.

As for sellers, the admin fee has gone up from $20 to $30, and they also forfeit their original booking fees. McCormack notes that campers looking to sell their tickets bear a particularly heavy fee load as they’ll pay two admin fees, as festival and camping tickets are sold separately. When you add in the forfeited booking fees, they’re set to lose $84.57.

And punters are pissed — a quick glance at the festival’s Facebook event page shows that it’s flooded with angry comments about being “ripped off” by the new resale fees.

Talking to McCormack, Splendour in the Grass director Jess Ducrou said that the fees cover the costs of the resale set up, and insists only a “minimal” profit will be made.

“There are hard costs associated with being able to offer the resale facility,” Ducrou said. “[There’s] tech development, administration, labour and ongoing management, a huge amount of inquiries, complications.”

“I know there’s suggestions that we’re making a bunch of money out of this, and yes we’re a business and we do need to make money from the event, but we’re definitely not retiring off this resale.”

If just 100 people resell their three day tickets, the company would make $3,990 from buyers, and $4,594 from sellers ($30 per ticket, plus the original $15.94 booking fee) — that’s $8,584 altogether. And considering the festival sells 30,000 tickets, that’s a conservative example.

For comparison, Groovin’ The Moo charge $6 to resell tickets through Moshtix.

Ducrou also argued that without the official resale facility, tickets would be “on the market for thousands and thousands of dollars”. Which is true: scalping is lucrative in Australia, as tickets for high-profile festivals and tours can sell out in no time then soon appear online for thousands above their original price — as the case with Kendrick Lamar’s Splendour sideshows.

Listen to Hack‘s feature here, around the sixteen minute mark.

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Photo via Splendour in the Grass Facebook