  We present a detailed study of the evolution of the Galactic black hole
transient GRS 1716-249 during its 2016-2017 outburst at optical (Las Cumbres
Observatory), mid-infrared (Very Large Telescope), near-infrared (Rapid Eye
Mount telescope), and ultraviolet (the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory
Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope) wavelengths, along with archival radio and X-ray
data. We show that the optical/near-infrared and UV emission of the source
mainly originates from a multi-temperature accretion disk, while the
mid-infrared and radio emission are dominated by synchrotron emission from a
compact jet. The optical/UV flux density is correlated with the X-ray emission
when the source is in the hard state, consistent with an X-ray irradiated
accretion disk with an additional contribution from the viscous disk during the
outburst fade. We also report the long-term optical light curve of the source
and find that the quiescent i-band magnitude is 21.39$\pm$0.15 mag.
Furthermore, we discuss how previous estimates of the system parameters of the
source are based on various incorrect assumptions, and so are likely to be
inaccurate. By comparing our GRS 1716-249 dataset to those of other outbursting
black hole X-ray binaries, we find that while GRS 1716-249 shows similar X-ray
behaviour, it is noticeably optically fainter, if the literature distance of
2.4 kpc is adopted. Using several lines of reasoning, we argue that the source
distance is further than previously assumed in the literature, likely within
4-17 kpc, with a most likely range of $\sim$4-8 kpc.
