Korn‘s Jonathan Davis was so excited by ORGY that he created his own record label …
Live Performance Australia, in association with the Australian Festival Association, APRA AMCOS, Music NSW and the Live Music Office have called NSW music lovers to arms after the government released its guidelines and regulations around “high-risk” festivals at 6.30pm last night.
“Last night at the eleventh hour, the Government finally released the regulations and guidelines for the controversial music festival license again showing they have absolutely no respect for the music and festival industry,” the joint-statement reads.
“The music, festivals and events industry is complex and establishing guidelines will always be hard and require good process. With a state election looming and a rush for media headlines, the NSW Government has ignored repeated requests to consult properly with our sector. This is why they are getting critical definitions and details wrong for an industry worth over $600 million to the state and employing thousands.”
The guidelines, which requires festival organisers to submit a safety management plan to the Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority, effectively categorises most large outdoor festivals—like that of Download or Good Things—as “high-risk” by definition.
“Any concert for over two thousand people with more than four performers, longer than five hours in duration or with more than one stage are likely to be at risk. From the Sydney Opera House, Olympic Park, Luna Park, the Hordern, wineries, showgrounds, beaches and community events, concerts like this happen across the state every weekend. With NSW regulations now being so hard to navigate and remaining the most costly in Australia, not only will concert promoters start to scale back or cancel national and local concerts, Australian performers that are showcased as part of these events will be first on the chopping block,” the statement continues.
Mountain Sounds and Psyfari have already pulled out of NSW citing unacceptable additional costs.
Evelyn Richardson, Chief Executive of Live Performance Australia told Hysteria that there’s been “no genuine attempt to work through these issues, which is why we called for an extension of that 1st of March deadline so we could work through all the draft documents. We haven’t had an opportunity to do that.”
Ms. Richardson also told Hysteria there are already sufficient guidelines for health and safety and the LPA has not heard calls from the general public for greater regulation.
“There are already guidelines for health and safety at festivals, and on the face of it, it seems like blatant politicking on behalf of the government with respect to music festivals. The bigger question is if you’re going to address issues that are going to effect an entire industry sector, you should sit down with them and talk with them about it. That’s all we’ve been asking for. We should sit down and work through some workable guidelines everyone can work to rather than the ad-hoc policymaking on the run we’ve seen.”
Ms. Richardson also says it’s not clear why the 14 festivals named by the Government are deemed high-risk. “The government doesn’t seem to apply its own criteria for identifying high-risk festivals, and that’s a major issue in and of itself,” she says. She also says it will have a negative flow-on effect for festivals in smaller towns and regions.
NSW Premier Gladys Berijiklian insists the new licensing requirements exist for the protection of young people.
“We want young people to have fun, we want more tourism to the Central Coast and other areas but the festival organisers have to obey the law,” she said on 11 February. “You can’t just make a quick dollar without thinking about the safety of young people.”
NSW Labor Opposition Leader Michael Daley has committed $35 million in music funding, and has promised to “end the war on music” by streamlining licensing processes and allowing for multi-year approvals.
NSW faces the polls on 23rd March.
ANALYSIS
by Tom Valcanis
In the United States, we are seeing an exodus of business from California to Texas. Why? Because California is imposing additional licences, more red tape, bigger taxes, and making life impossible for business to turn a profit.
Texas does the opposite. Less regulation, lower taxes, better profits. If I was trying to turn a “quick dollar,” I know where I’d go.
NSW, despite being under the control of the so-called free-enterprise Liberal party, wants to choke the leisure industry in the same way. Why? Leaving the argument for “we know better than you peasants”, they are cut from the same cloth as every other entrenched government in human history. Power. They want the power and they want it now.
They say they want to protect young people. Despite living in the most safest and prosperous time in Australian history, the NSW government thinks festivals, where 99.9% of ticketholders arrive home safe, sound, and perhaps with a bit of tinnitus, are breeding grounds for lechers and violence. Maybe in the EDM scene where ‘roided up gymrats start fights with anything that glances in their direction; however most music festivals are relatively trouble-free.
The government simply wants power over your right to party, your right to put things in your body, and the right to exercise your desires in a free market. They’re doing all three by imposing these regulations on festival goers. They want to put a tax on something they already tax parts of—such as alcohol excise—because they want to raise revenue. Maybe you should try making your bloated government more efficient first?
It is unconscionable in a liberal democracy. Everyone should have the right to make a quick dollar without big Mummy government stuffing their hands into our pockets, telling us what we can and can’t do. Because that’s what they want to do. They do not care about you.
Once Gladys and her cronies are turfed out of parliament, she’ll get a fat State pension and job offers from FirmsWithNamesSpelledLikeThis in the seven to eight-figures. She’s taken care of. She’s saying fuck you and fuck me.
So tell Gladys fuck you. Do it at the ballot box, do it in the streets.
She doesn’t care about you.
So why care about her?
