Founder of touring giant Chugg Entertainment, Michael Chugg, has shared his thoughts regarding Splendour In The Grass planning to go ahead in October and said that it’s “very ambitious.”
Speaking to Tom Tilley and Annika Smethurst on the most recent episode of news podcast The Briefing, Chugg thinks that planning the festival, which holds 50,000 people, for October is a risk.
“It’s a punt, they’re taking a punt,” he said.
“You know I don’t want to be negative towards Splendour or any of the festivals. We’d like to have a couple going on as well, but I think October is very ambitious.”
Chugg also shared his thoughts on festivals being able to go ahead without a coronavirus vaccine available, something Chief Medical Officer Dr. Brendan Murphy has shared his doubts over.
“I think festivals can happen without an antidote, if they find a vaccine great, but I think if they do the testings right, I mean there’s going to be a lot of differences, there’s going to be a lot of barriers put in place, how close you can be to each other obviously,” Chugg said.
“There’s going to be limited capacities, there’s going to be very careful health checks that’s gotta happen.”
Splendour announced earlier this year that it will be postponing the 2020 event from July to October following the coronavirus outbreak and subsequent restrictions of mass gatherings, though its clear doubts still exist about whether the festival will go ahead at all.
Plenty of other festivals, like Groovin The Moo and Dark Mofo, have had to completely cancel their 2020 iterations. Meanwhile, earlier today Falls Festival revealed that its 2020/21 legs will feature an all-Australian lineup.
Listen to the full podcast episode here.
