August 12, 2005
Development
- Blues Festival rears its head again
Just when you thought that a meter of water over the site last month would have put an end to this crazy plan.
Peter Noble has an article in the Northern Star today, which appears below
There is also a section in the editorial, that calls for comments. Please could everyone who gets this pop off a short email to the Northern Star, you know the issues by now - noise, traffic, flooding, qld party goers etc etc
Send them to opinions@northernstar.com.au or call the feedback-line on 6624-3266
Continue reading "Blues Festival rears its head again"
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August 08, 2005
Development
- Report on 2005 Blues Festival
The Blue's Festival's report on their concert this year is being presented to council on Tuesday 8th August
See council's website www.byron.nsw.gov.au to figure out the times etc if you want to go along ...
See "File"
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July 10, 2005
Roads
- Council transport forum Aug 12th
Hi everyone
We have received the following invite from Cr Jan Mangelson regarding a forum on transport solutions. This sounds like a good opportunity to let council know how much we just love the highway and all the noise from the big trucks!
If anyone is going to go, please let me know.
- Mitra
Thank you all for your help and hard work re this issue. It is gaining a lot
of momentum. The forum at long last is taking shape and we have had good
interest already. I will give you a list of the speakers and the agenda
next week. We are sending out a press release on Monday. I would greatly
appreciate it if you could send the flier and invitation out to your contact
people and send me a cc so that I can keep a database. Regards Jan
(More contains the invite from Jan and Tom Tabart, "File" contains the registration form)
See "File"
Continue reading "Council transport forum Aug 12th"
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May 21, 2005
Development
- Northern Star:Too many people are playing different tune
From a six-part series in the Northern Star...
Organisers of the East Coast Blues and Roots Festival say it is growing too large for its home at the Red Devil's football fields, yet they are struggling to find a more suitable site to expand, while the Splendour in the Grass music festival has come under attack by tourism expert Professor Robert Waldersee, of Queensland University of Technology, for adding to Byron Bay's escalating partytown reputation.
The quandary facing the town's community, business leaders, council and event organisers is how to balance the benefits the festivals may bring against the impacts they are having on a town already bursting under the pressure of popularity. Prof Waldersee has challenged the town to rethink what the big events are doing to Byron Bay's reputation, but at the same time he says hosting a range of smaller festivals aimed at attracting a different type of visitor could be the salvation of a town spiralling down under the dual pressures of development and tourism.
"Signature events are major drivers of reputation, and reputation is a major driver of the type of tourism that will come throughout the year," Prof Waldersee says. "Signature events should reflect the community, attract the target tourist market, and build the desired reputation." Of the town's signature events, Prof Waldersee says NYE and Splendour build the reputation of a party-town and the Blues is heading in this direction.
"Byron's growing party reputation is costing businesses the high-spending and family tourists they need to prosper, and costing the community culture and amenity," he says.
The only way to change the reputation is to change the signature events, Prof Waldersee says. "End Splendour, redesign NYE to be friendly to the target market (families), and remove the Blues and Roots unless they are willing to return to their roots and downsize their operation."
While Prof Waldersee's suggestion to change NYE back into a family-oriented event has the full backing of the Lions club and the chamber of commerce, the call to down-size the Blues and Roots Festival would appear to be falling on deaf ears.
Last year three of the biggest names in the music industry Michael Chugg, Glenn Wheatley and Daryl Herbert joined Blues director Peter Noble when they bought out the festival's founder Kevan Oxford, and down-sizing is the last thing they plan for their new investment. Within weeks of the takeover, Mr Chugg had added his biggest performing act, REM, to the Blues line-up and started talking-up a mooted move to a larger festival site at Tyagarah.
The move to a tea-tree farm at Tyagarah would see the Blues potentially grow from 15,000 punters a day to upwards of 40,000 with on-site camping and purpose-built performance venues that could be used year-round by the whole community.
However, Blues Festival director Peter Noble's oft-spoke of dream for the festival to turn into an event to rival Queensland's Woodford Folk Festival has hit a snag with the locals at the chosen site.
Residents' group, the Tyagarah Sustainable Community Alliance, has vowed to fight the move, concerned about the loss of neighbourhood amenity and safety, traffic, noise and pollution as well as the effect the proposal would have on the nearby Tyagarah nature reserve.
Kali Wendorf, founding president of the Tyagarah Sustainable Community Alliance, questions whether the shire needs another three or four events a year that would bring the equivalent of the shire's population into residents' backyards for a whopping great party.
The only major event the town hosts that receives a universal stamp of approval is the Byron Bay Writers' Festival, and the reasons for that may provide the solutions for the other big events, says festival director Jill Eddington.
"Essentially, if festivals have evolved out of the community, a la the writers' festival, they bring identity and pride to the community," she says.
"And we have an audience that fits clearly with high-yield, lowimpact tourism. We don't have that big partying element." Ms Eddington wants the Byron council to lead the way by employing a festivals co-ordinator, like neighbouring Tweed Shire does, strategically map-out a calendar of events, and streamline the development application process for festivals.
Meanwhile, others have taken on board Prof Waldersee's ideas of low-key festivals designed to project an image of the town that will attract the right type of tourist while showcasing the community's artistic talents and local culture.
Mayor Jan Barham says the council is preparing a cultural plan that will define what events the community wants to host, and when and where they will be held. She would like to see performance venues created outside the town and the establishment of a Byron festival, although where this would be and who would pay for it, is unclear.
"A cultural site (outside of town) would first of all diminish the impacts festivals have on the town, and it would provide the opportunity for other things to exist," she says.
"People have talked about a Byron festival for 15 years. It would be an event that celebrates our community." Cr Barham imagines the Byron festival to be a modern- day agricultural show as well as a performance event. However she concedes: Finding somewhere to hold such a community festival, purchasing the land required, and funding the infrastructure may depend on private enterprise, such as the Blues.
Before the community refuses a new venue for the Blues, she says: "We need to evaluate how much they are worth to our community. "We've all got to give and take."
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April 20, 2005
A letter has been sent to all councils, telling them about the publicc meeting, and the concerns raised by the 80+ people attending.
Read it here
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April 09, 2005
Development
- Concert venue floods, people and horses have died before
As a Tyagarah resident, I am amazed at the proposal to have a large “Cultural” Events venue on a property that clearly floods.
According to George and Ann Gray, who used to keep horses on the property in question, horses have drowned there in the past and there was not enough time to get them out of the paddocks due to how quickly the floods rose. Also one man familiar with the flooding was drowned and found up in a tree.
Even the lower highway into Byron, which is higher than this property in question, is clearly marked with flood depth measuring poles and has in the past flooded, which would make leaving the site even more difficult.
Four years ago Grays lane, which is close to the proposed venue and part of the same flood zone, flooded to chest height in just two hours. There is no possible way to raise the level of this proposed venue without affecting the drainage of the entire area.
Using this property as a venue would be seriously jeopardizing many innocent people’s lives just to trade on the Byron name and make a buck.
There are other venues that are perfect for what the organizers need for such large scale events.
How could anybody in their right mind hope to get 30,000 people who are possibly drunk or stoned off a property in under two hours, when it is never clear that these are the two important hours because the rain can let up and there might be no flood.
I find this proposal criminally negligent and any deaths resulting from it, will I am sure be prosecutable. May common sense prevail!
Isaac Shapiro
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March 31, 2005
Development
- Here and Now: a permanent large-scale venue proposed for the Shire
At the crossroads of defining itself, Byron Bay considers the consequences of its reputation as a party town. Meanwhile developers plan to bring even more large scale concerts to the area using the beloved Blues festival as the Trojan horse. Will locals see beyond the skilfully marketed ‘music and culture’ façade, and into the real agenda of big business?
The rest of the article from the Here and Now is here ....
See "File"
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March 30, 2005
Development
- Echo: Talks begin on Tyagarah venue plans
Consultants for the East
Coast Blues and Roots Music
Festival Pty Ltd met with
residents of Tyagarah and
Council representatives
recently to discuss plans for a
concert venue behind the
Tyagarah service station.
Attempts to reach Peter
Noble from the Blues Festival
were unsuccessful and his
consultants declined to comment
on the issue or the matters
discussed at the community
consultation meeting.
The Echo understands that
the purpose of the meeting
was to define residents’ objections
to the concert venue.
Following the community
consultation session, the Tyagarah
Sustainable Community
Alliance called a meeting
of local residents to assess
reaction to the proposal.
‘Residents were overwhelmingly
in agreement
with their desire to stop the
development in its tracks
before it proceeded any further.
Concerns included loss
of neighbourhood amenity
and safety, unsavoury uses of
surrounding land, traffic,
effect on surrounding wildlife
and reserve, noise and light
pollution. Residents felt that
the kind of tourism such a
venue would bring would
only contribute to the growing
party atmosphere of the
Byron area,’ the Tyagarah
Sustainable Community Alliance
said in a press release.
‘What we need is a community
owned and operated
cultural events centre that
serves the community and
hosts appropriately-sized
events that benefi t local residents
and businesses,’ said
Tyagarah resident, Isaac Shapiro.
‘Not a corporately
owned mega venue.’
Councillor Tom Tabart
who attended the public
meeting last week told The
Echo, ‘I was quite happy initially
with the proposal to
move the Blues Festival providing
the site could be
proved to be environmentally
and socially acceptable for
the purpose. But they lost my
support when they expanded
their plans to describe it as a
major events site with permanent
buildings and four or
more major events a year.’
‘I oppose it on the grounds
that it is an imposition on
locals, but also I have grave
concerns about the traffic
and the impact on the small
towns of Brunswick Heads
and Mullumbimby of anything
up to 3,000 campers.
As we are reassessing our
tourist structure to make it
more family friendly, I don’t
think this is an appropriate
venue.’
A development application
for the proposed venue has
not yet been lodged as studies
are still under way.
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Development
- Blues festival outgrows venue: police (ABC)
But .. The pollice seem to think the crowds are too big, this from the ABC today ....
Police say larger crowds for this year's East Coast Blues and Roots Music Festival at Byron Bay, on the New South Wales north coast, pushed the event location to its limit.
The acting commander for Tweed-Byron, Owen King, says despite the big numbers, the crowd was well-behaved.
Inspector King says traffic into Byron Bay was the usual Easter nightmare, but traffic offences and accidents did not reflect the increased population.
However, he says from the perspective of police management, the Red Devil's football ground has reached its use-by date as a venue location.
"At the moment the capacity of that ground is getting to its limit," he said.
"I know the organisers are looking at a different location still within the Byron Shire, but at this stage I don't believe the Red Devil's park can take any more numbers in the amount of people that do turn up to this event."
See "File"
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Development
- Northern Star - one more year at Red Devil
There is an article in the Northern Star today, that the Blues Festival will stay at Red Devils Park for another year.
Its good in some ways - gives us another year of piece and quiet, but its not over yet, presumably this gives the developers another year to prepare a response to the inevitable community outcry.
MICHAEL Chugg is chuffed.
The newly-appointed East Coast Blues and Roots Festival director yesterday described the 16th annual festival as: �Fantastic, absolutely wonderful and trouble-free�.
He also confirmed the Blues would stay at Byron Bay, at Red Devil Park, for another year.
The announcement follows speculation that the festival, and the accompanying 75,000 people who file through the gates over five days, would be moved to a more permanent site at a 162-hectare tea tree farm at Tyagarah by next Easter.
Mr Chugg confirmed the move was still being considered, but not in the immediate future.
"We�ve announced that we are staying at the Red Devils for now," he said.
"There�s nothing solid worked out about the future yet.
"But, obviously with a sell-out event, I think we have to look for somewhere larger."
As well as keeping the same venue for next year�s blues, and, after seeing out his first festival as a new director, Mr Chugg said there was little else he would change about his new project.
"We were blessed with great weather and the crowds have been absolutely trouble-free," he said.
"It�s not very often you get crowds that well behaved.
"There will be a few changes I�ll make next year, maybe to the site layout, that�s about it."
As the big-tops were pulled down at Red Devil Park yesterday afternoon, thousands of bleary-eyed festival-goers migrated into town � wandering off to the beach, the streets, or melding into queues for the coaches that will deliver them back home.
And the entertainment that kept them happy over Easter was also on the move. The ferris wheel that entertained 3000 giddy revellers is on its way to Toowoomba for the annual agricultural show, the Mojo stage that played host to the Dave Mathews Band is off to Lismore for the Big Top under the Stars, and Michael Chugg and his headline act, REM, set off for their next gig in Brisbane.
See "File"
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