Fairfax claims crowds grew for Spectrum Playground after adding more acts
Fairfax Media has claimed 60,000 people attended the final week of its Spectrum Playground event in the Domain, building on the claimed 9,000 who attended the first weekend of the free arts festival.
The media company had been under pressure to boost attendance at the flagship event after the lacklustre turnout on the first weekend, which it claimed had seen attendances hampered by bad weather.
Sponsors ANZ, which last week expressed disappointment at the turnout over the first weekend, said Sydneysiders “turned out in their masses” despite the continued unsettled weather.
The crowd for the Cat Empire at the festival
Source: Twitter/Liquid Idea
Posts on social media include images and videos showing bigger crowds than attended the first weekend’s activities in The Domain, a venue capable of holding tens of thousands of visitors.
“The final few days of Spectrum Now are shaping up well with ticket sales strong and a number of sold out events across the program,” a spokesman said.
Images shared on social media show improved crowds for the event
The media company strengthened the musical line up with the late bookings of Sneaky Sound System, The Cat Empire and Angus and Julia Stone in a bid to boost numbers.
“We’ve had sold out events throughout the festival, and this week there are many more that are not to be missed, so I encourage Sydneysiders to get out and embrace their city’s creativity and I think they will be surprised by its brilliance,” festival director Caroline Kemp said.
The company was unable to provide a daily breakdown of attendance, while the 9,000 figure it claimed for the previous week only related to the weekend, making a direct comparison difficult.
Fairfax has chosen not to audit attendance at its public events making precise numbers on attendance, at both last weekend’s and the week before’s events, difficult.
The festival runs until March 29.
So those negative commenters on one of the other articles about Spectrum Now who made assumptions like “none of these acts will put bums on grass” were very wrong. Plenty of bums were indeed on the grass — and that’s despite the grass being constantly wet! There was lots of positive feedback on social media over the last week or so of the festival and all of these headline acts drew big crowds, judging by the pics and videos.
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What, once, (to Dave face) they sold some distress space?
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I went last Thursday and it was pretty well patronised. Long-ish lines and a very big crowd in front of the music stage, but otherwise not so crowded that you couldn’t find a spot on the grass. Which is basically the perfect level of busy.
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Hmmmmm, honestly I was at the Domain site at 6.50pm on Sunday 22 March and it was not busy. I’d estimate less than 1000 people on site, seats available at tables and acres of space to sit on the grass.
The Morrison’s large tent was closed, as were a number of the other food stalls, most of the ones that were open had no customers. There was never more than one person at the bar tent over the 20 minutes we stayed.
Looked like there was a band coming on at 7pm but there were minimal (ie about 30) people at the front awaiting them. We left and a showed arrived around 7.30 which must have killed it completely.
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“Fairfax has chosen not to audit attendance at its public events” – that’s just another way of saying that the event numbers were so bad, we want deniability. I’m sure they provide numbers for other events like the city to surf.
Just admit that it was a “fail” and move on. Hopefully the events team will learn from their mistakes.
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I attended the Sunday show and the “crowd” attendance was a bare minimum. Again the weather wasn’t the best but many foodstalls were closed and there were very few queues at the ones that were open. Lots of open spaces in front of the stage. Great if you dont like crowds but in reality I don’t think Fairfax nor ANZ would have been happy with the lack of patronage.
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We estimate there was a crowd of around 4000 at its peak on Saturday but certainly less than 1500 on weekdays. The proof is in all the unsold puddings/beer/burgers: rumour has it caterers have already asked their money back. Why can’t Fairfax admit it failed and move on? The whole thing feels insincere.
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