The lineup for Splendour In The Grass 2015 was announced yesterday and with it a few important and some might say sadly necessary changes were made to the event’s list of banned items. Yes, organisers have gone ahead and banned the notorious selfie stick.

In addition to fireworks, skateboards, and weapons of any kind, those dreaded cudgels of self-involvement are not permitted within the festival’s entertainment precinct. Somehow, you’ll just have to watch Blur without taking 30 perfectly framed photos of yourself and your friends.

The ban makes Splendour In The Grass the latest major festival to bar punters from bringing in the controversial item, after Soundwave founder AJ Maddah confirmed that they would not be permitted within the grounds of all upcoming Soundwave events.

“Dear people with those fucking camera sticks: please have some consideration for people behind you trying to enjoy the show. Thank you,” the outspoken promoter wrote via Twitter shortly after the Melbourne and Adelaide legs of Soundwave 2015 concluded.

“It is just the ultimate expression of narcissism,” the outspoken promoter later told Fairfax. “Most of them are pointed at the stage with kids taking photos. But I think the one that kind of put it in perspective for me was there was a band set going and a young girl pointed it at herself.”

“It took every fibre of resistance I had not to just grab the stick off her and kick her out.” Maddah explained that the sticks enable “illegal recording” of a band’s set in addition to the general inconvenience and potential danger that they pose for others.

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Numerous Australian venues, including Melbourne’s Etihad Stadium, Domain Stadium in WA, Perth Arena, and Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane have also placed a ban on selfie sticks, stating in their ticket terms and conditions that they will refuse entry to punters carrying them.

According to a statement from a Qantas Credit Union Arena spokeswoman (via Fairfax), selfie sticks have been barred at the venue because they don’t “want our patron’s event experience being affected or ruined by others in front of them continually using these devices”.

So bad news for anybody who was hoping to bring their favourite stocking stuffer to their favourite music festival this year, but you’ll just have to leave it at home with your water pistol, your protest paraphernalia, your containers of liquid fuel, and your damned bread crates.

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