Some world music fans have labelled this year's WOMADelaide festival as "unsafe" with long queues for toilets, a lack of food and water and allegations sex acts were performed in public.
But festival organisers said the record 30,000 crowd for Saturday night was a success.
WOMADelaide fan Erin Dockrey said everyone was talking about the crushing crowd on Saturday night and it "was really noticeable".
"It wasn't just about toilets or food, it was about safe access to areas in the venue," she said.
"People were falling over chairs, there were no walkways, there were sexual acts happening in front of families and older people.
'"There was security but to find security, it took me 10 minutes. It was really tricky, it was really unsafe — I was separated from both of my children."
Her friend, Emma Anderson, said she had been going to the festival since its inception and struggled to get out of the crowd on Saturday night, with many others in similar situations.
"There were families around me, they were talking about how frightening it was and for some of them, it was their first [WOMADelaide], and they said they'd never come back again," she said.
The sentiment has been echoed by dozens of concertgoers on the event's own Facebook page, but organisers have defended this year's festival which has set a new attendance record.
Director Ian Scobie — who has apologised to fans who were affected — said that the 2023 WOMADelaide had been the biggest in the event's 31-year history, and that the issues raised would help inform planning going forward.
Disability advocate and researcher BJ Dee-Price was among those impacted.
She attended the festival with her husband and sons, including Max who is in Year 12 and has a physical disability.
"We went Friday evening … and we faced a series of barriers," Dr Dee-Price told ABC Radio Adelaide's Nikolai Beilharz.
She said that, after they were dropped off to join the queue to get in, Max was forced to ride his mobility scooter along the road rather than use the footpath.
"He wasn't able to get up the curb," she said.
"We couldn't get up to the line, there were no curb cuts to take the wheelchair to follow the crowd as they were going in."
Max told the ABC he "couldn't enter [the] park without help from strangers".
"WOMAD is for everyone not just [the] fittest," he said.
Mr Scobie said the event had engaged accessibility consultant, Access2Arts, to help plan the site this year.
He said innovations included "lit and marked walkways with two-metre clearances" and "new parking, drop-off zones at both ends of the park".
"It's unfortunate that that individual's had that experience, but it's right on our priority list and Access2Arts have been at the festival all weekend and they'll be giving us advice for what we can do next year," he said.
Dr Dee-Price said that, later on, she and her other son were in line "for more than an hour" as they queued for the bathroom.
She said some were so desperate to go that they were using accessible toilets intended for people with disabilities.
"It's degrading to the human condition, and I think organisers really need to understand the human condition – that we all need water, we need food, we need toilets, and if we spend half our time in those lines we're missing those shows, we're putting ourselves under stress."
While "staff were amazing" in doing what they could to help, Dr Dee-Price suggested organisers revisit the event's capacity, venue and the number of facilities.
"I would also recommend that lived experience of grabbing a wheelchair, maybe a double-pram, and having a walk around," she said.
'An hour to go to the loo'
Other concertgoers also reported lengthy queues to access bathrooms, with one saying he had experienced "25 years of amazing WOMADelaides for me and this year is appalling".
"You've squeezed far too many people in and not increased the loos to cope," he wrote on Facebook.
"People aren't hydrating because they can't wait an hour to go to the loo."
Another described the queues as "ridiculous", while another said "we did NOT love the incredible lines and masses of people".
"Some of which treated others with complete disrespect, stepping over us, pushing through and standing in front to get the best view when there really wasn't room," she said.
"In the many years we have attended WOMAD this has not previously been an issue. Too many tickets were sold this year for patron safety and enjoyment."
Expanded capacity crowds of 30,000 attended each of the first two days of the event in Adelaide's Botanic Park, with headline acts including Florence and the Machine, Bon Iver and Billy Bragg.
The festival's director expressed sympathy for those who were inconvenienced, but said capacity was "within the guidelines in terms of all the OH&S requirements".
"I'm sorry they had to wait. It's not what we would like, it's a standard we want to improve on, it is a standard we will be working on," he said.
"It certainly was a big event and a big audience, you do have queues."
'New record' for festival attendance
Mr Scobie said he did not want the issue to overshadow the fact that this year's has been "the most successful WOMADelaide we've presented".
"We'll be well over 100,000 I think, we'll see how we finish up tonight but we're certainly in a new record," he said.
"I think we should just understand the scale of what's been achieved here.
"Saturday was the busiest but, again, last night and Friday were all sold out. It's been fantastic."
Tourism Minister Zoe Bettison said that this year's Mad March long weekend was estimated to inject $128 million into the state's economy.
In a statement, SA Police said there had been no reports of indecent or inappropriate behaviour at the festival that had been reported to its officers.
