The festival - to be held on April 17 and 18 at Thomas Dalton Park - will be a seated event to conform to COVID-safe restrictions.

Read more: Some big changes for Yours and Owls

At a Wollongong Local Planning Panel hearing, Balunn Jones from Yours and Owls mentioned that they had considered punters sitting on the grass with picnic rugs and the like, but that was rejected by NSW Health.

One of the council's conditions related to the type of seating to be used, stating "all seating rows must be grouped within a frame that sees the seats supported off the ground. Individual seating is not appropriate for any grassed area".

Mr Jones said they had already ordered 14,000 chairs, described as a "plastic white bistro chair", that would be cable-tied together in rows to stop people moving them around.

"We've got 14,000 seats coming in and I understand again it's a concern for the grassed area but the type of seats they've specified just don't exist," Mr Jones said.

"There's no way we can do it."

Mr Jones added that the legs of the chairs wouldn't damage the grassed areas any more than "the studs on the bottom of football boots".

In approving the festival, the planning panel said the seating plan had to be submitted "to council's satisfaction" 10 days prior to the festival bumping in on April 12.

"The plan must adequately demonstrate that the proposed seating and/or ground surface protection minimises damage to the sports fields as much as possible," the panel decision stated.

A vehicle movement plan must also be submitted to council at the same time, ensuring the grassed areas of heavy vehicle and pedestrian traffic areas were protected by a surface membrane.

In terms of noise, the panel noted that acoustic management was in place and that the festival had handled that issue when it was held at Stuart Park.

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