14 New South Wales Festivals deemed ‘high risk’ by state government under new Festival Licensing Scheme despite similarity to other festivals held in the state.
In late February, the New South Wales Liquor and Licensing department released its new ‘Music Festival License Guidelines’ scheme to the public, leaving hosting companies in the dark up until the last minute. Many companies were left blindsided as they reportedly were only informed just hours before a late-night press release announcing the list, according to themusic.com.au. Many patrons have been left confused when there are several major festivals continuing to be held within the state that have similar issues outlined by New South Wales Liquor and Gaming.
The ‘high risk’ festivals in NSW are as follows:
- Ultra Australia
- Laneway Festival
- Defqon.1
- Days Like This
- Transmission
- Fomo
- Up Down
- Electric Gardens
- Hardcore Till I Die (HTID)
- Subsonic
- This That
- Knockout Games of Destiny
- Lost Paradise
- Rolling Loud
Being included on this list, for hosting companies, means paying a $650 licensing fee, as opposed to other festival hosts paying nothing for their licence.
In regards to being classified as ‘high risk’, NSW Liquor and Gaming in a statement via email, has claimed that those identified as high risk fell into their criteria as determined by NSW Health and the NSW Police Force.
Between the 14 listed festivals and other major live music events held in the state, there are few dissimilarities. The above festivals have all had drug offences occur, and several have had deaths, however there are also numerous other major events held in the state that have had multiple drug offences within the past 18 months.
There have been a collective 300 drug related offences across several festivals not included on the list in the last eighteen months.
In a seperate statement via email from the NSW Police Force, they claimed that the classification of these festivals were completely made at the discretion of “[the] NSW Government and the Premier Gladys Berejiklian”.
Stephanie Li, a regular attendee of major events such as HTID and Fomo, says that she can’t understand the logic behind singling out particular festivals. “It’s not fair that they’re picking on certain festivals when there’s other ones out there that got the same problems”.
NSW Liquor and Gaming has stated that the listed festivals, and all other festivals will be under review regularly under this new scheme.
NSW Music Collective 