When organisers of Return to Rio, a popular electronic music festival, cancelled its 2024 event in NSW, they blamed a 529 per cent increase in police and medical costs.
The extra expenses meant they would have to raise the ticket price by $100, which would affect sales and make the festival commercially unviable.
Return to Rio became one of a since 2022. Poor ticket sales and rising costs for everything from insurance to international flights have led to organisers shedding profits and cancelling events.
In NSW, tight policing regulations squeeze harder, with some event organisers budgeting for up to $50,000 for police, on top of their own security guards, and $45,000 for a medical presence.
Some festivals are blaming cancellations on the high cost of police and medical expenses. Source: Supplied / Ravyna Jassani
Return to Rio's organisers told the media their police fees alone for the 2024 event amounted to $110,000 for patrolling officers, a boat on the Hawkesbury River, and an on-site compound.
Following six drug and alcohol-related deaths at festivals in the 2017-18 summer, the then-Liberal state government introduced the Music Festivals Act 2019, which raised on-site policing and health requirements — to be paid for by event organisers under the User Charges policy.
"Some of the costs and approaches to policing was a total handbrake on the industry," Mitch Wilson, managing director of the Australian Festival Association (AFA), told The Feed.
"It's totally driven events out of NSW. We've seen promoters stop doing things in NSW because it's all too hard. We've seen new, small events and young promoters trying to give it a go get absolutely tied up by red tape."
In September last year, the NSW Act was revised to ease the pressure on the struggling industry. Most significantly, the controversial 'subject', or high-risk, provision applied to festivals was scrapped. Now all festival organisers have to prepare a health and medical plan, which replaced the safety plan. Only select festivals will be required to have their health plans agreed on by NSW Health. Under the new amendments, the organisers were also given the right to appeal costs.
However, critics said the revision did little to address heavy police presence and the costs associated with it.
"The reform truly is bittersweet for festivals because, while Labor finally scrapped the draconian 'subject music festival' label … it missed much of what festival organisers have been crying out for: less of the expensive, military-like police involvement suffocating our festival industry," NSW Greens MP Cate Faehrmann wrote on Facebook in October.
The NSW Minister for Music and the Night-time Economy, John Graham, supported the changes to the Act. His spokesperson told The Feed the amendments would 'reduce the bureaucratic barriers and additional costs imposed on many in the sector'.
What's the situation in Victoria and Queensland?
Other states and territories do not always require police presence at music festivals and when they do, the number of officers deployed to patrol a certain crowd is lower.
During parliamentary budget estimates last March, Faehrmann quoted the costs of an unnamed festival that toured Australia in 2023.
In NSW, the festival had 35,000 attendees and was charged $120,465 for police services. In Victoria, where the crowd was about 40,000 people, organisers were charged less than $10,000.
The costs of policing a festival can vary drastically for organisers between different states. Source: Supplied / Ravyna Jassani
AFA says that due to the differences in state laws, festival organisers in Victoria and Queensland can be charged half of what's charged in NSW for police to patrol a crowd of the same size.
A NSW Police spokesperson told The Feed they do not comment on operational matters of other states, but 'the force conducts thorough risk assessments as part of all operational planning.'
"As part of that planning, police constantly review intelligence provided and continue to work closely with multiple agencies and event organisers as well as our own specialists in the field to identify and address potential issues," the spokesperson said.
Who decides how many police officers a festival needs?
Clients can request police for various events or services, but for music festivals, regulations are stricter.
The NSW Police spokesperson said the User Pays program was a not-for-profit function, paid to the force to recover the cost of personnel and resources used.
"The number of police required varies and depends on a range of factors including crowd size, risk assessments, the size of the related venue and safety measures," the spokesperson said.
"The level of police support is determined by the client organisation, in conjunction with NSW Police Force," they said.
According to the, "the Commissioner of Police has absolute discretion to set the police resources requirements for the event". The organisers provide an estimated number of police officers required, which is subject to police approval.
AFA's Wilson said many organisers often welcomed police at their events for their expertise and assistance in crowd and traffic management and protection from theft, but the relationship used to be far more collaborative.
"User Pays police and having police on site was actually asked for by some of the organisers a few decades ago but I think it's swung too far the other way," he said.
Who can be exempt?
In some cases, event organisers can apply for a discount or full exemption.
Sydney's Mode Festival, held in October, was designated a 'subject' festival – before the changes to the Act — due to its "rural" location on Cockatoo Island in Sydney Harbour and the types of music that would be played – namely, electronic.
Mode's medical bill for the day was just shy of $30,000 for multiple emergency-qualified doctors and resuscitation facilities on site as required by the Act (on top of the $15,000 they paid to Ambulance NSW) plus User Charges for police that were quoted at around $50,000 for more than a dozen officers.
The User Charges policy states the Commissioner of Police then "maintains powers to deploy police to maintain order at events and to demand payment to recover the cost of police deployed".
"That really puts us under a lot of pressure to meet these requirements under the legislation," Mode co-founder Joe Ireland told The Feed.
Mode Festival's co-founder said festivals now face increased pressure to meet policing requirements. Source: Supplied / Ravyna Jassani
Under the revised legislation, User Pays charges can be appealed through a two-tiered independent process through the Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority. Previously, appeals for charge exemptions or reductions were directed only to NSW Police, which was criticised as a conflict of interest.
Mode received a 50 per cent reduction in ambulance and police User Charges, from $15,000 to $8,000 and from $50,000 to about $20,000, respectively, by meeting exemption criteria, which include government sponsorship and the potential economic inviability of the event if charged in full.
Joe Ireland suggests the government could fund the cost of policing music festivals as an investment in the local economy. Source: Supplied / Ravyna Jassani
"These events help generate so much revenue for the government in terms of tax and they help stimulate the economy," he said.
"In my opinion, governments should look at it and go: 'Well, we make money from this festival because we charge GST and tax and there's wages that get brought in etc, so then the cost of doing business for us is we supply police to the event'."
Does police presence increase safety?
While many in the festival industry welcomed the reforms, they believe heavy police presence is deterring patrons and prospective organisers.
"I do feel it's created some sense of hostility around festival environments and I think that combined with rising ticket costs … that's really challenging," Ireland said.
AFA's Wilson said the sight of police patrolling a festival or checking ticket-holders with sniffer dogs leaves many young Australians with the sense that festivals are inherently associated with wrongdoing; that they could get in trouble just for attending.
"We need their [police] involvement to run successful events but the law enforcement aspect in NSW, particularly drugs and alcohol … has a greater focus than their interstate counterparts," he said.
A survey of regular festival-goers in Australia by the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre found 70 per cent said police presence did not deter them from consuming illicit drugs, while the NSW deputy coroner found high-visibility police tactics like sniffer dogs and strip searching at music festivals increased rather than decreased the risks associated with drugs.
But a NSW government spokesperson told The Feed police played a critical role in maintaining safety and security at music festivals.
"Officers are there to keep attendees safe from all types of harm, help prevent serious injury and detect and respond to criminal activity such as assault and theft," they said.
"Policing music festivals also includes crowd control, traffic management and drug detection."
