Revellers breached their fenced pods to “mosh” in front of the stage at the COVID-safe Summer Sounds music festival in Adelaide on Saturday night.
Key points:
- Summer Sounds was the first major music festival in Adelaide since the coronavirus pandemic
- About 30 people left their COVID-safe ‘pods’ towards the end of a Dune Rats set
- 30,000 tickets to the festival were sold, with organisers describing it as an overall success
The first major music festival in Adelaide since the coronavirus pandemic began has been running at Bonyton Park this month, requiring patrons in groups of two-to-six to remain in fenced pens — or “pods” — to enjoy the music.
Drinks delivered by golf buggy have also been among the coronavirus safety measures at the festival, which finishes up tonight.
An organiser of the festival, Craig Lock, said the festival had essentially run without a hitch until the incident last night.
He said about 30 people left their pods to “start dancing or moshing” at the front of the stage during the second-last song of Brisbane rock band Dune Rats’ set.
“We then enacted a procedure which we had in place for this exact [kind of] incident.
“We stopped the band from playing, we gave security time to move everybody back into their pods and then the band came back out and completed their set as normal.”
Mr Lock said the vast majority of patrons had respected the rules during the 23-day festival.
He said it was ultimately a very successful event, with about 30,000 tickets sold.
“Being in a pod with your friends is very different to a normal concert, so it’s very relieving for us — as the people that have sort of put everything on the line to make this happen — that it has gone well,” Mr Lock said.
“On the whole, we’re really stoked with how it’s gone.”
Two out of every three jobs in the live entertainment sector were lost during the coronavirus crisis in 2020, according to a report by consulting firm EY.
Mr Lock said SA Health had yet to get in contact about last night’s incident, but that the festival’s organisers had been in near-daily contact with the department’s staff, and SA Police, to run the event safely.
He said that he hoped to be able to run festivals that were less restricted in future, but that it was impossible to predict what would happen with the pandemic.
“We just don’t know yet, we’ll wait and see.”
Summer Sounds Festival wraps up with a set from Hot Dub Time Machine this evening.
Headliner Bernard Fanning, along with Something for Kate, Spiderbait, Jebediah, Lime Cordiale, Ruel, Ball Park Music, Mallrat and Ocean Alley had also featured on the festival’s line-up.
