EFFIE BATEMAN | Lifestyle | Contact
The NSW government has today announced they’ll be offering a ‘lifeline’ to struggling music festivals, following the cancellation of several prominent festivals this year, including Splendour in the Grass, Groovin the Moo, and Bluesfest.
Music festivals and the live music scene have been struggling nationwide due to rising operational costs, with NSW facing the brunt of it.
The ‘Contemporary Music Festival Viability Fund’ hopes to offer some relief to festival promoters, by providing up to $500,000 to cover ‘government related costs’, such as medical, police presence and ambulance, and operational costs, including insurance, production and staffing.
Though this should be a win for the live music industry, the NSW police has since come forward to announce how grateful they are for this cash injection, stating that they now plan on ‘charging even more excessive prices to supervise music festivals.’
This comes as NSW police have been accused of repeatedly price gouging music festivals, seeing as there are no guidelines limiting how much they can charge. So prolific is this rort, that NSW police are accused of charging 12 times more to supervise events than Victorian police, with last year’s ‘Listen Out’ being a notable example, as organisers reveal it cost $242,000 for 164 officers.
Under Victorian law, if festival organisers argue that the police charges will threaten the event from going ahead, they can appeal to Victoria police’s chief financial officer to have the costs waived entirely.
“I’m honestly over the moon”, said the police commissioner, barely hiding her smile, “especially with Knockout Outdoor just a couple of weeks away.”
“I’m thinking we might need to up our presence two fold.”
More to come.
