57% of triple j listeners would hit up a festival before a coronavirus vaccine

Following news from Australia’s chief medical officer that “big” music festivals are unlikely to return before a COVID-19 vaccine exists, triple j ran a poll of listeners to see how they felt about the whole situation.

Professor Brendan Murphy said this week he would find it “hard to envisage reopening of nightclubs and big music festivals in the foreseeable future,” before a cure or a vaccine is available.

While many festivals have been cancelled for the year, the news sounded like a death blow for festivals like Bluesfest Byron Bay and Splendour In The Grass, both of which chose to postpone until later in 2020.

As it turns out, more than half of triple j listeners – who make up a pretty big chunk of Splendour attendees – would happily attend the festival before a vaccine is discovered, despite the risk.

In a poll hosted on the national youth broadcaster’s app, 57% of respondents said ‘Yes’ to the question: Would you go to a festival before a COVID-19 vaccine is available? A total of 881 voters said ‘Yes’, while 678 or 43% said ‘No’.

The response comes despite a conversation that triple j Mornings presenter Lucy Smith had on Thursday with ABC’s Health Editor, Dr Norman Swan, who hosts the ABC’s Coronacast Podcast. They were joined by Dr Karl.

“Social distancing is impossible at a music festival,” said Dr Swan. “You are in close contact with other people and it only takes a few people to be infected for that to spread, and if you’ve got one super spreader in there, you’re stuffed. It’s high risk.”

Smith asked Dr Swan his opinion on when music festivals could realistically return in Australia, especially given how well the country is tracking compared to other nations.

Dr Swan said it was “too early to say” but thought that things would be “much clearer by July. In saying that, he re-iterated that “if July we’re still down low, I’m not sure they’d even allow a music festival but I think the lid will come off much faster on medium-sized gatherings.”

The takeaway from the interview was that ultimately we can’t be completely safe unless a vaccine is created or a cure is found. And that could still be a while down the road.

“A vaccine could take a long time, may not be 12-18 months,” said Dr Swan. “It’s a really difficult vaccine to make.”

Dr Norman Swan on triple j Mornings:

At this stage Splendour In The Grass is officially going ahead from Friday 23, Saturday 24, Sunday 25 of October this year.

Get unlimited access to the coverage that shapes our culture.

Subscribe to Rolling Stone magazine

Subscribe to Rolling Stone magazine