Overview
Today, the NSW Government announced which festivals would be impacted by its strict new music festival licensing regime — and four of the 14 named are where young people died from suspected drug overdoses.
As well as Defqon.1, Lost Paradise, FOMO and Knockout Games of Destiny — where five festivalgoers died during the past six months — the list includes Laneway, Electric Gardens, Subsonic and Rolling Loud. You can check out the full list below.
While the regime will not be officially introduced until March 1, the 'interim guidelines' have already led to the cancellation of two NSW festivals: Mountain Sounds and Psyfari. The festivals highlighted the "newly imposed safety, licensing and security costs" and the inability to pull together an estimated $200,000 to cover 45 police working across a 24-hour period as reasons for the cancellations.
Byron Bay's Bluesfest — whose festival director sent a scathing letter to Premier Gladys Berejiklian saying, "Will the last festival to leave NSW please turn out the light of culture in this soon to be barren state?" — was not included on the list.
In the statement released today by the NSW Government, Minister for Racing Paul Toole said that only the 14 festivals listed would be impacted by the new licensing regime, but that the list would also be "regularly reviewed".
"The NSW Government wants music festivals to thrive – but serious drug related illnesses and deaths have demonstrated that we need to help make a small number of them safer," Mr Toole said in the statement.
The licensing regime has already been widely criticised for its lack of transparency and failure to consult with industry bodies, and this latest announcement has only heightened this. The Australian Festival Association said in a statement that the organisers of the 14 festivals were notified "by SMS last night" of their 'high risk' status, saying "the process has lacked integrity and transparency — and there are just as many questions left unanswered by the government's latest announcement".
This latest move from the NSW Government follows, the Don't Kill Live Music rally on Thursday, Friday 21, when thousands of Sydneysiders — as well as bands and big-name members of the live music industry — descended on Hyde Park to defend the city's live music scene.
Despite increasing calls for pill-testing the NSW Government has refused to consider it as a harm-minimisation technique at festivals. Canberra's Groovin' the Moo, however, has just been given the go-ahead to host Australia's second-ever pill-testing trial.
LIST OF HIGHER RISK FESTIVALS
Days Like This — Victoria Park, March 2019
Transmission — Sydney Olympic Park, March 2019
Up Down — Newcastle, March 2019
Defqon.1 — Castlereagh, September 2019
Subsonic — Monkerai, November 2019
This That — Newcastle, November 2019
Knockout Games of Destiny — Sydney Olympic Park, December 2019
Lost Paradise — Glenworth Valley, December 2019
FOMO — Parramatta Park, January 2020
Electric Gardens — Centennial Park, January 2020
HTID — Sydney Olympic Park, January 2020
Rolling Loud — Sydney Olympic Park, January 2020
Laneway — Callan Park, February 2020
Ultra — Parramatta Park, February 2020
Image: Laneway, Maclay Heriot