Splendour in the Grass co-founder Jess Ducrou says the decision to push on with this year's festival was not motivated by money, and organisers "did the best we could" in difficult conditions.
Ms Ducrou pledged the festival will "definitely" be back in 2023 in an interview with Hack on Monday, after a tumultuous weekend at North Byron Parklands.
The 2022 edition was dubbed "Splendour in the Mud" as the festival grounds were flooded and turned to slosh by heavy rain on Thursday night.
It created chaos for people arriving at campsites, who were forced to wait hours to gain entry or resorted to sleeping in their cars.
Friday's main events were then cancelled amid concerns more rain could smash the already soaked festival, before the bill ran as scheduled on Saturday and Sunday.
"We were in a really difficult position," Ms Ducrou said.
"We have insurance, we could have cancelled the entire event. So it wasn't a financial decision for us to go forward.
"It was more about considering how long it had been since Splendour had happened. The fact that so many people had come into the area for it.
"And the fact so many people were relying on it and working for it.
"And it was a mixed bag, for sure. It certainly wasn't what we hoped it would be.
"There were some great moments."
Ms Ducrou stood by the call to cancel main stage acts on Friday, after she had initially said they would go ahead "rain, hail or shine".
She conceded telling festival-goers events would proceed on Friday morning was "perhaps not the right message".
"We had new information from the SES and the weather bureau that there was a low that developed up near Brisbane and was headed down toward North Byron Parklands," she said.
"Our first priority was to keep people safe. It was the right thing to do."
She said patrons would be refunded for Friday, as would people who pre-booked buses from the festival site on both Friday and Saturday.
People have reported waiting six hours for buses home on Saturday, with pictures emerging of huge crowds huddled at bus stations well into the night.
Ms Ducrou said that information only reached organisers "after the fact", and that several buses booked by the festival did not show up as planned.
"I think some of the drivers got sick," she said. "It's something we'll have to take up with the bus company."
On Monday morning, campers were leaning on each other to get their bogged cars out of the muddy grounds.
"We absolutely had to help each other," Daniel Wicki, who travelled from Melbourne, said of getting his car out.
"I was a bit worried the car wasn't going to start."
He said despite his experience, he would consider attending the festival again next year.
"If I can survive this Splendour in the mud, I can survive anything, so I probably will."
Fellow attendee Ewan Roxborgh estimated around "50 per cent of the cars down here are going to need to be pushed out".
"We've already spoken to the girls down the road in the campervan and they're pretty bogged."
Mr Roxborgh said he and his friends arrived on Thursday at 3pm to try and get into the campgrounds.
At 3am on Friday, he and hundreds of others pitched their tents in the North Byron Parklands Day Car Park, which was converted to a campground at the last minute.
"People were just getting bogged and there was no way we were going to get up to the campsite, and this was the best we were going to be able to have," he said.
Ms Ducrou said selling an extra 7,500 tickets on top of the 35,000 capacity from previous years was not to blame for the issues faced this year.
It was the first time Splendour has been held since 2019, after two years of cancellations due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
"You can plan, and we definitely overbooked on everything because we were expecting some impacts. But you just can't get everything right," Ms Ducrou said.
"And I think the weather certainly affected the ability to just roll through it."
She said negative feedback on social media, including some saying they would not return to the festival, was concerning but "it is what it is".
It will "definitely be back next year", Ms Ducrou said, despite increased running costs.
"I think people would have been very disappointed if we cancelled. I think it would have been very hard for the industry," she said.
"We just did the best we could."
