Splendour in the Grass: Stallholders 'robbed' at music festival
Being 'robbed' was just one of the challenges the two women faced at the iconic Australian music festival.
While revellers were welcomed with less mud and more sunshine at this year's Splendour in the Grass, the iconic festival still came with its problems, leaving two small business owners vowing not to return.
Olivia O'Neill and Ebany McLees were keen to set up their stall for their Australian-made clothing label Ellore but they said when they arrived everything was an "unorganised mess".
"Originally, we were placed in a spot where we were completely isolated as a brand — out of the area where there was foot traffic — no one could even find us," Ms McLees told Yahoo News Australia.
So on the the last night, being "robbed" was just the cherry on top for the Melbourne and Brisbane women.
"After asking to be moved, the new position we were put in wasn't properly secured — everyone else had really good fencing," she said.
"Then on the last night, we were at our stall and it was dark and raining — the only time it rained during Splendour — and someone pulled out our power."
After that, the small business owners heard a "big bang" and rushed to the "back of the house" behind the stall where the noise had come from, to find the metal fence had fallen and several hoodies were missing.
"The lids had been opened and someone had rummaged through and taken some of our hoodies — maybe five or six," she claimed. "And the fence had fallen onto all our stock as they were jumping back over.
"They'd definitely been taken and obviously they'd gotten away with it because there was no security footage or anything."
Asking a few other stallholders for help, but inevitably not being able to do much about the incident, the two women persevered until the end of the night.
"At that point, with all the other things that had happened, we were so exhausted and a bit emotional. But also thought we can't do anything about it and just continued on to stay open until 11pm," Ms McLees said.
"Don't think we'll ever go back though, because of how unorganised the event team was and there were a lot of sellers there that were also unhappy".
Despite their bumpy ride, the duo were thrilled to "still get [their] brand in front of so many people" and "keep a lot of people from being cold at splendour".
"We really focus on our fleece wear, so we've got our hoodies, track pants, crew necks," Ms McLees said. "They've become pretty iconic across places like Melbourne, Perth and Adelaide."
Yahoo News has reached out to Splendour in the Grass management for comment.
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