Royal Randwick - Music Festival

I object to the two day Music Festival at the Royal Ascot Racecourse to beheld on the second weekend of March for the next 10 years, because I live locally and this years festival was way to loud, disruptive and had problematic issues concerning alcohol consumption in local streets, including my own and the anti-social behaviour resulting.
Firstly, the festival should be re-located to an area such as Homebush, away from substantial residential suburbs because the music is incessently loud, with bass levels disturbing your ability to hear, think, rest and sleep. The vibrations from the music have made me sick.

Secondly, I rode my bicycle around the Racecourse area only to discover that the streets, footpaths, gardens including Centennial Park, intersections, gutters,were significantly littered with alcohol bottles and plastic drink bottles because patrons were drinking before entering and dumping their rubbish.
Also before and after the event, there are unruly crowds of people walking around, often inebriated, disturbing the peace, or involved in physical abuse. It is not safe to walk around or pleasant for that matter.
I am a rate payer and I work Mon-Fri, 9.00-5.00pm and I object to the fact that I will have to relocate for that weekend to get some peace and quiet. Why should I? No-one is going to compensate me for the fact that I can't enjoy my weekend at home without aural disturbances beyond my control.
Therefore I strongly oppose this application, especially that it will be for 10 years.
I say take the festival to an area where if won't infringe on local residents.

The festival every year destroys the amenity of our house for the weekend. You can hear the noise all through the house and the back yard is unusable for the entire weekend. After the festival is finished the suburb is full of drunk people often singing and shouting at all hours of the night keeping us awake and there is broken glass and rubbish in the morning. The suburb does not have the public transport capacity for all these people and is full of cars legally and illegally parked.

We understand that the music festival is an annual event.

However as we have stated in previous years it is crucial that our building be provided with SECURITY.

It should not be a cost that our building should bear as we have done twice previously.

We insists that the standard of security petrol be that same as it was at last years events as this was the most successful we have had since the commencement of the festival.

The security supplied by the organisers patrolled the building from the start of the day for the entire two day event. Under cover detectives where also at the back lane way and front of the building throughout the two day event.

We are happy with this arrangement and request it continue. For if we do not have security what occurs is a) people jumping the back gate and entering into our property to urinate b) we end up with people walking around our building drinking and looking for toilets.
c) we have people trying to park in our garage.
d) we have youths having sex and taking drugs in our back lane way which is the back entry point to our building.
e) the security also ensures that when the concert is finished they move the youth along quickly rather than in previous years they hang around our building shouting and pressing on the intercoms for anyone to open up so they can continue to have a party in the building.
f) security also ensure youths do not congregate at the front entrance of our building drinking all night and smashing bottles.

We also insist that the 1300 security number be provided so that our building managers can place this in the building and our lift - so any issue then is handled by the organisers NOT our onsite building managers that are not trained nor paid to control the swell of youths.

We trust that approval be granted with this condition.

I object to the events planned for Randwick Racecourse on 8 & 9 March 2014 on the following grounds:

Term of consent sought inappropriate

A ten year consent is inappropriate for these event as substantial changes, partly to reduce the impact on the wider community have been required each year. The opportunities to comment if a 10 year approval is granted will be reduced. In addition, where modifications are made to development consents are made, which I consider inevitable over a 10 year period, these are often considered by the Department of Planning & Infrastructure as `minor' without the opportunity for the public to comment.



No doubt the Department of Planning and Infrastructure would be aware of the plans for light rail along the Alison Road frontage of the Racecourse (to a Randwick terminus) and also nearby on Anzac Parade (to a Kingsford terminus). During the period of construction, scheduled for 2014 to 2019, many amendments to the Transport Management Plan submitted with the current development application would be required. As patron ingress and egress as well as bump-in and bump-out are a major component of the development application, to commit to a 10 year consent would be unwise.



Transport Management Plan inadequate

The current Transport Management Plan attempts to cover many aspects, but none adequately, due to the changing circumstances of the event, most recently the introduction of a second event on the Sunday in 2013. The Transport Management Plan needs to be revised so that as well as being an overview document, separate components are dedicated to (i) bump-in and bump-out, (ii) Future Music event on Saturday and (iii) Good Life event on Sunday. Currently, the information is combined with key detail included in various appendixes which makes adjusting for contingencies (adverse weather, conflicting events nearby) difficult to be considered for all the various aspects of transport management.

Also regarding Transport Management, for the Saturday, Future Music event, there is a clear need for a dedicated `meet up' area post event either for patrons separated during the event (or on egress) or for those who have arranged others to collect them post event - even with mobile phones, messages / directions etc can become garbled especially after a long day at a music event. I suggest some sort of `drop and ride' facility similar to that proposed for the Sunday Good Life event (in Moore Park) be implemented for the Saturday Future Music event.



I have not been able to view the proposed messages for the Variable Message (VMS) units, but I consider these should until 4pm advice patrons of "Free Event Parking" with an appropriate arrow so that the on-site parking is utilised in preference to residential streets. Patrons who have chosen to drive have already made the decision not to utilise the public transport component of their ticket when they see these VMS. This is important because apart from reducing parking availability in these residential areas also leads to instances of anti-social behaviour post event as patrons return to their cars, post event.



Possible conflicting event at Moore Park and finishing time inappropriate

The Transport Management Plan has been prepared on the basis of no conflicting large scale events at Moore Park, but notes the possibility of a soccer match on Saturday 8 March with a finish time after 9pm. The ability to schedule events so that clashes, particularly during the egress period don't occur is central to the suitability of the Racecourse as a venue. Indeed, the egress of patrons is key to the successful operation of such a large scale event. In previous events, the inability of patrons to depart the area has led to widespread anti-social behaviour in the surrounding residential areas.

As the Transport Management Plan has only been prepared on the basis of no conflicting events, this consent should be provided on the basis of no conflicting event a finish time within 1 hour of Future Music or alternatively, attendance numbers being capped at 20,000. The promoter of the Future Music event would have the ability to provide more tickets up to the 50,000 sought if there is no event clash.

I also note that a later finishing time of 10.30pm is sought for this years event. This being on the basis that a later time was adopted for 2013 based on "operational advice" of the Police that egress of such a large number of patrons could not be accommodated. This indicates that the Transport Management Plan for 2013 was inadequate, but this has not been acknowledged in the current plan which largely repeats the 2013 plan.

The 10.30pm event closure in 2013, with sound impacts was in breach of the development conditions. Unless the development conditions are adhered to the impacts on residential amenity will continue and this is further indication that Randwick Racecourse is an unsuitable venue for late finishing events where patron egress occurs in a short period. The usual use of the Racecourse for racing events has patrons disburse over a longer period and no later than around 7pm. Previously, residents have asked for an earlier finishing time, but the event promoter claimed it was necessary for darkness so the `key' act could use light shows as part of their performance.

Whilst the consent can't identify which are the `key' acts, I request that no special effects lighting be permitted after 9.30pm and a 10pm closure time be maintained. If operational reasons require a slightly later finish time than 10pm, then then restrictions of special effects lighting after 9.30pm and also a reduced permitted sound decibel allowance (suggest 75% of the permitted decibel during the permitted hours). These consent conditions will ensure that the `key' act is not pushed back to beyond the closing time and reduce `conditions consent creep' by the promoter.