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Seventy-seven minutes. Shorter than your average movie and about the length of a typical rock concert. That was all the time it took to sell out seventeen and a half thousand tickets to this year’s Splendour in the Grass festival. Now in its ninth year, Splendour held at Belongil Fields in New South Wales’ ever popular Byron Bay, is for many the poster child for a dream festival. While acquiring its fair share of detractors it is an event with few equals in this country, a cross between the lifestyle and community aspects of Woodford folk festival, more traditional Aus rock showcases like The Big Day Out and V and England’s legendary Glastonbury festival. Every year sees thousands of new and returning fans, many of whom travel across Australia, eager to tap into the magic of Splendour.

This year returning post-punk heroes Bloc Party, electro-indie prodigies MGMT, psychedelic madmen The Flaming Lips and alternative rock legends Jane’s Addiction lead the international charge. On the home front Australian stalwarts such as Paul Kelly, Augie March and Splendour frequent players Decoder Ring, Sarah Blasko and Grinspoon are back for what should be another thrilling ride.

We chat to Splendour promoter Jess Ducrou about the tremendous success of the festival, the process for picking the line-up and this year’s bands, future expansion of the site and the improvements in ticketing technology.

Congratulations on Splendour selling out in record time. Does it still surprise you that Splendour sells out so easily?

I guess not so much surprise, given it’s in its ninth year, and it has sold out since the first event but the amount of people that want to buy tickets seems to grow every year and I think that’s surprising.

Do you know how many people applied for tickets this year?

Well our database has almost 50,000 entries and we have 17,500 tickets. We actually don’t promote or market the event that much. Our advertising is quite minimal. To have that amount of people interested no matter how feverishly we market it or don’t market it is pretty amazing.

It sounds like a promoter’s dream really.

Yes it is. It’s an awesome problem to have.

Splendour seems to go beyond just being a music festival; it’s seen as an institution that many people go to regardless of who’s on the bill.

It’s had a real life of its own from the beginning. We had people come to us with ideas for things that they thought would be good to do at Splendour and we embraced those ideas. People that went had an amazing amount of ownership of the event and wanted to contribute. I think it’s something that you can only hope for, I don’t think you can create it, it just happens.

Over the years we’ve recognised that and embraced people’s ideas and tried to develop them. As the producer I’ve been mindful that I want the experience to be more than the music. Sure I want the music to be interesting, challenging and incredible — but I also want people to go to the event and not just go and see the bands. Go and spend the weekend in the tepee forest, or get involved in some of the performance workshops, or hang out in the Guzman Y Gomez bar which was a new destination for us last year. We try to make that as important as the music.

When you were first establishing Splendour were there other festivals you went to and researched?

Absolutely. With Splendour I had a pretty clear idea of what I wanted it to be, so I was developing ideas and avenues and then coincidently travelled to the UK and visited Glastonbury and it was like Splendour twenty years down the track. That was really interesting; I didn’t even know I was heading down this path until I saw that event. I was aware of Glastonbury, but until you go you don’t get a real idea of what it’s like. It’s definitely rougher than Splendour but it’s got a charm and an organic nature which appealed to me.

What’s the process in creating a typical Splendour bill?

My Splendour business partner; Paul (Piticco, and Dew Process founder) and I have a wish list of stuff that we want to see and every year we manage to tick off a band or two which has been on the list since the beginning. Then other promoters or agents come to us with ideas and we also travel overseas to London and California, but generally London is where you buy most of the talent for Australia. We go over there and meet with various agents and hear what they’ve got to suggest and also check out some of those bands while we’re there.

There are some bands on this year’s bill that have played Splendour previously e.g. Grinspoon, Bloc Party, Sarah Blasko, Decoder Ring. Are some bands an automatic decision to re-book?

Yes. Bands that we might like; bands that have played and received an awesome reaction and have defined their festival career by Splendour, which I think Bloc Party are definitely one of; and then just populist favourites that we know people will want to see. I mean Grinspoon are a bit of an Australian staple diet and they’ve proven themselves over time that they can put on a great show and that’s what we look for when we’re choosing acts.

People seem to rave about Decoder Ring’s Splendour shows.

We love those guys. It’s also a bit of an indulgence from our perspective.

Are there any acts you’re particulary looking forward to this year?

I’m a huge fan of The Flaming Lips and Bloc Party. We’ve toured Bloc Party outside of Splendour and I’ve been so chuffed watching their career develop here. MGMT I really like. I saw them at SXSW last year and they were amazing. Jane’s Addiction who I saw many years ago, they’re such an awesome live band. Friendly Fires I think will be great. The Middle East, an Australian band I think are incredible and have a bright future. There are a good dozen acts that I’d like to see and probably won’t get to.

A few of my friends are gutted that The Flaming Lips aren’t doing a Brisbane show. What is the reasoning behind Brisbane getting very few Splendour sideshows?

I guess primarily fifty percent of the people that go to Splendour are from Brisbane and its surrounds so to go and put a show in that market you kind of cannibalise your ticket sales. That said, when the festival has sold out and we’ve put shows on in Brisbane, and we’ve done over a dozen shows over the years, none of them work and we lose money. It’s the same reason why the Big Day Out, based on the Gold Coast, rarely put shows on in Brisbane — they don’t really work. You get crowds but just not enough, compared to Sydney or Melbourne, and you end up losing a bunch of money.

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