The issue of seating at next month's Yours and Owls festival was a source of concern at the Tuesday night meeting of the Wollongong Local Planning Panel.
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As well as any approval from the planning panel, the festival will also need to be ticked off by NSW Health regarding the COVID safety plan.
The festival, scheduled for April 17 and 18, will appear in a very different form from previous years.
Rather than being held at Stuart Park, it will move to Thomas Dalton Park in Fairy Meadow due to "the physical area needed to hold the event in the proposed modified, COVID safe format necessitated finding an alternate event site with sufficient area," the planning panel papers stated.
A maximum of 14,000 punters will be allowed through the festival gates and will be seated in one of four separate zones - each seating 3500 people.
Each zone will have separate entry and exit points and its own bars, toilets, medical facilities and food and merchandise stalls.
The original development application featured stages at either end of the seating arrangement, as well as one in the centre.
Due to relaxation of COVID restrictions for outdoor events, the stages at either end have been removed, with two placed in the centre.
The seating issue was a concern for Yours and Owls representative Balunn Jones.
In response to public feedback relating to the possibility of damage to the playing surface of Thomas Dalton Park, the council document stated "all seating rows are to be grouped within a metal frame where seats are supported off the ground".
Mr Jones said they had already organised the delivery of 14,000 seats, similar to a "white bistro chair", which would be held together in rows by cable ties to stop patrons from moving them.
If the organisers were required to ensure the seats were raised off the ground, it would make the festival "impossible" to hold.
Mr Jones suggested the chairs would do no more damage to the playing surface than football studs and said the organisers would fix any damage as needed.
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Glen Humphries
I'm an award-winning senior journalist with the Illawarra Mercury and have well over two decades' worth of experience in newspapers. I cover the three local councils in the Illawarra for the Mercury, state and federal politics, as well as writing for the TV guide. If I'm not writing, I'm reading.
I'm an award-winning senior journalist with the Illawarra Mercury and have well over two decades' worth of experience in newspapers. I cover the three local councils in the Illawarra for the Mercury, state and federal politics, as well as writing for the TV guide. If I'm not writing, I'm reading.
