Summer Of Uncertainty

By Sophie Heath

The Mountain Sounds music festival, which for five years had presented two days of music each February on the Central Coast, was brought up short in February this year with a $200,000 quote for extra policing. The festival couldn’t support the extensive, last-minute regulatory demands—and was forced to cancel one week out.

The organisers tried to be optimistic. “We may have lost the Mountain, but they can’t stop the Sounds,” they posted on their Facebook page.

The festival went into liquidation shortly after.

The Mountain Sounds experience may soon become the rule rather than the exception. NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian is set to introduce what she is billing the Music Festivals Bill 2019 in mid-November. The bill would force festivals deemed as ‘high risk’ to comply with approved safety management plans regulated by the Liquor and Gaming Authority. The Liberal Party, which has long campaigned against the state’s entertainment industries, insists that the six drug-related deaths of young people at festivals between December 2017 and January 2019 is a rationale for the crackdown. 

Among the festivals that will be negatively impacted by such a bill is the Strawberry Fields music festival which has grown into a beloved four-day celebration for both festival attendees and the local community in the town of Tocumwal.

Like many other festivals in NSW, it has laboured under what organisers say is an exhausting litany of bureaucratic demands already. 

“The bill is more likely to threaten regional events than save a single life,” Strawberry Fields organisers said of the Berejiklian bill.

The Liberal Government introduced strict licensing regulations to festivals in March this year. A formal investigation was conducted 91 days after the regulations were introduced. The controversial regulations were rescinded in September after they were overturned by an inquiry on the grounds that there had not been collaboration with the music industry.  

It appears that history is repeating itself.

Tara Benney, Director of Strawberry Fields, has expressed her heartbreak over the new bill due to its lack of music industry consultation. While the bill won’t affect the upcoming event in November, it is still highly problematic.

“I’ve seen the way that other events have been treated when they have been brought under the microscope,” Benney said. “I mean you can look at Mountain Sounds as an example of that. That level of uncertainty is something that’s really quite scary to face. Knowing that at the last minute you could be given really strict conditions or told you have to spend an extra $150,000 dollars to fund a sniffer dog operation—that level of uncertainty is really hard to bear in an industry that’s still very hard to make money in.”

“At the last minute you could be given really strict conditions or told you have to spend an extra $150,000 dollars to fund a sniffer dog operation—that level of uncertainty is really hard to bear”

The Premier’s office was contacted for comment by City Hub, but a response hadn’t been received at the time of publishing.

“We walk down the street and we know the butcher and the grocer and the lady that runs the tea rooms,” Benney says. “To have to look at those people and say sorry we need to consider moving to Victoria because the regulatory environment is too unpredictable here is really tragic.” 

The Member for Murray, Helen Dalton, in the secondary debate of the Bill, explained how detrimental the Music Festivals Bill 2019 is to festivals and their local communities.

“Strawberry Fields, for example, is keeping the small town of Tocumwal alive. It brings an estimated $2.6 million to the broader region every year,” Ms Dalton explained to the Lower House in October.

Ms Benney agreed and described Strawberry Fields like a ‘local business’.

“We supply almost $50,000 a year in community funding; we throw free events, we give out community grants in up to $10,000 to organisations which struggle to find it elsewhere. Building a permaculture garden in the local primary school or giving cancer funding to local cancer patients so they can go and get their appointments. We sponsor the local bowls club… the local footy club. Tocumwal would 100% be impacted and that’s why we don’t want to leave.”

The risk of success for a young entrepreneur in creating cultural events, whether in regional or metropolitan NSW, is already a difficult task without the addition of restrictive festival legislation.

Ms Benney, like so many other festival directors, is having to consider moving to the friendlier festival states of Victoria and Queensland due to the insecurity of the legislation.

The festival stated, “We believe the voice of the local community is the most important in deciding what events happen locally and on what terms.”

Regional festivals are more than just an economy booster, especially in these devastating drought conditions that are crippling communities with anxiety.

The Strawberry Fields Community Grants scheme sponsored a free drought relief concert in May this year, which improved community spirit and raised $3000 for MHA Foodshare, a program that delivers groceries to drought-affected families.

The new bill is centered around safety. However, the Premier has rejected the deputy state Coroner’s draft report recommendations for safer music festivals, which included the introduction of pill testing and the removal of drug dogs and body searches.

Evidence before the current Law Enforcement Conduct Commission has also confirmed that many searches had no legal justification.

Benney says the government gives no credibility to the mitigation measures the festival already has in place. Strawberry Fields has over a dozen operational plans, including a harm reduction plan, and has NSW police and ambulance on site. 

Ms Benney’s frustration extends to the fact that the new bill also has Liquor and Gaming Authority regulating the festival, despite it not selling alcohol.

“No local council or local police area command would feel comfortable allowing an event with 10,000 people to go ahead unless they felt there was sufficient planning. I think the Premier has made a lot of statements saying she cares about patron safety and I hope that she does, but neither her nor I are medical professionals or experts in the field, and I think we should be trusting the opinions of experts.”

Despite the immeasurable benefits this treasured festival and many others like it bring, the grim reality is that the ambiguity surrounding this new bill is a danger to the livelihood of Strawberry Fields home in Tocumwal as well as festival culture statewide.

Are you working with a festival that will be negatively impacted by the proposed new legislation? Please email the author at sophieheath21@gmail.com