Festivalgoers at Beyond The Valley who say they were forced to wait for hours in scorching heat to exit the event on New Year's Day have slammed the festival's handling of the incident.
After ringing in 2023 listening to "epic" music, Zoe and her friends joined the line to leave the event at Barunah Plains, near Geelong, Victoria, early on January 1.
It's the first year the event has been held at that location.
Zoe said they began lining up to leave at 8:45am, but didn't get out until 5:30pm.
"The conditions were horrendous," she said.
"We were in 37-degree heat, but we were lucky enough to have aircon. After a couple of hours waiting at a standstill, we [had] wasted almost a quarter of a tank of fuel."
Festivalgoer Heath and his mates also waited in the queue for hours.
"Exiting was an absolute disaster," he said.
"It took us about eight hours to get out of the campground.
"It's pretty unbelievable it took us six-plus hours to move probably 200 metres."
Many festivalgoers reported concerns there was only one road out of the festival.
"We passed the time by playing hangman on the inside of a Shapes box, planning an exit strategy if there was a bushfire," Heath said.
In a comment posted below their January 1 Instagram post wishing punters a happy new year, Beyond The Valley said: "We are experiencing traffic delays getting out of the festival today due to the influx of cars exiting the festival as well as general holiday traffic on the roads.
"We sincerely apologise for the delays and inconvenience caused, please bear with us as our staff work to support this process."
The festival team said they had buggies to drop off water at cars and that there was plenty of shade and food available on site for those who wished to wait until traffic eased.
"We understand this process is not pleasant in the heat. Our priority is to get everyone home safely."
Response laughable, say punters
Zoe slammed the response, saying it was both inadequate and inaccurate.
She said she and friends didn't have mobile reception, so the Instagram post never got to them.
"I didn't see the post until we were pretty much out of the line," she said.
"I genuinely laughed. All of it was bulls***.
"We were not given water bottles until we exited the gates, which in our case was nine hours later.
"[There was] no food provided and definitely no shade. It was an open field and we all had to wait in line. You can see in the drone footage the field had no form of shade or escape from the sun."
Festival goers also allege there weren't enough toilets to cater for the exiting crowd.
"The campsite toilets were packed up extremely early on the last day, probably by 11am they were mostly closed up," Heath said.
"Everyone ended up using the staff portaloos, and there weren't many of them. Not great for an eight-hour wait with thousands of people."
"A few of us were on day one of having COVID, with only one unblocked toilet [around us] out of I'd say about 60," Zoe said.
"All were overfilled with vomit and s***."
'Areas for improvement'
In futher social media posts on January 3, Beyond The Valley said it would revisit the festival's exit process before next year's event.
"While the event ran extremely smoothly across all four days, we understand that there are areas for improvement that require our attention, particularly the festival exit plan," organisers wrote.
"We wish to assure you that our team are already working hard on solutions for our 2023 edition, including works to increase the number of exit routes on Jan 1st."
Zoe said changes needed to be implemented to avoid a repeat of this year's queues, which dampened an otherwise enjoyable event.
"I really enjoyed the festival. The event was overall well-run and well-staffed," Zoe said.
"I felt safe and protected by staff throughout the whole four days bar the exiting nightmare.
"I completely understand these things can happen.
"If they do, I believe security should have been walking down the lines communicating the progression and how they are working to resolve the issue.
"Not once did we have anyone walk down and let us know what was going on. It was terrible."
Beyond The Valley and Untitled Group, who organise the festival, have been contacted for further comment.
