"Unfortunate and uncommontechnical difficulties" atBrisbane Laneway

Mon 30th Jan, 2012 in Local News

St Jerome’s Laneway Festival punters in Brisbane had to contend with “crazy tropical weather”, lengthy delays and shortened sets at the first stop on the festival’s national tour.

Days before the festival the threat of rain forced the festival promoters to move all the stages undercover with co-promoter Danny Rogers reassuring fans that the festival would “easily” cope with the weather issues and that the late changes were made to provide punters with the “best experience possible”.

Despite the move indoor the festival still suffered from several issues the most notable being the 50 minute delay before the scheduled headline performance from M83.

According to an apology issued after the event on the festival’s website, the M83 set was delayed “due to unfortunate and uncommon technical difficulties beyond M83’s and [the Laneway] production team’s control”. The delay resulted in the bands set being cut by 15 minutes as the festival risked fines for running past its curfew.

The apology also stresses that “some aspects of their show were not reflective of the way they usually play and M83 performed in these difficult circumstances to the best of their ability and delivered a great show.”

Apologies for the delay had been posted on the festival’s Facebook wall and Twitter during the festival, along with a promise that M83 would play a full set, but punters at the festival who were not busily checking their social media were left in the dark.

The promoters have also apologised in the post event statement for not communicating what was happening during the delays, explaining that “we ask you to understand that our focus was trying to get the show up and running as quickly as possible and on a number of occasions we thought that the show was ready, only to discover that the problem was still unresolved. It was an unfortunate situation.”

The post event apology also explains that “The sound issues that occurred on the other stages at a few points throughout the day were a consequence of the decision to move the entire event indoors two days prior. While they were unfortunate, the issues were relatively minor and on balance we think a better alternative to standing outside all day in the rain. Our goal was to give you and the bands the best possible solution to something (weather) that was obviously out of our control.”