Secret was out at Spit
30,000-plus crowd causes transport havoc
Hundreds of hire bikes were abandoned in a public park while traffic gridlock gripped The Spit after a ‘secret’ Fred Again concert saw more than 31,500 people descend on the area.
Two-time Grammy-award winning DJ Fredrick Gibson, aka Fred Again played the pop up event at Doug Jennings Park on the Spit on Saturday.
However, the buses organised to ferry patrons to the event proved inadequate, with it drawing a bigger crowd than either the Suns or Titans AFL and NRL season openers, which were both played the same afternoon and evening.
The gridlock and lack of buses saw hundreds of people ride hire bikes to Main Beach and The Spit where they were left abandoned on the footpaths causing havoc.
Gold Coasters have been warned to brace for more, with 10 further large-scale events booked for Doug Jennings Park this year.
Businessman and former Surfers Paradise Alliance boss Richard Holliday slammed the poorly organised public transport.
“Allowing 31,500 people to attend a so-called secret event on The Spit with limited public transport and concert goers queuing for miles waiting for transport at makeshift locations in Surfers Paradise and Australia Fair is madness,” he said.
“This has to stop.” Mr Holliday, who was previously a board member on the Waterways Authority, said the size of events occurring at Doug Jennings Park was far beyond the scope planned during The Spit Masterplan.
“The Gold Coast Waterways Authority needs to re-evaluate their event strategy especially public transport public safety, the impacts on Surfers Paradise and Australia Fair in relation to transport and the impacts on Dough Jennings Park,” he said.
“During community consultation on The Spit Masterplan nobody envisaged crowds above 30,000 attending concerts on the Spit.”
Video shot late on Saturday afternoon showed the mass of abandoned bikes littering the footpath near the former Golden Door site, while Mr Holliday encountered even more on Saturday night on the Main Beach foreshore.
Area councillor Darren Taylor said the events were booked and organised by the Gold Coast Waterways authority rather than council and questioned whether it was appropriate to hold large events on The Spit given the lack of transport infrastructure to move large numbers of people in and out.
Mr Taylor said council was working with all parties to improve future events
“The Authority has 10 more events planned for the year and once they book them we have to deal with the traffic management,” he said. “One of the issues is the size of the events because the road network cannot manage that amount of patrons and as a city we have to get the infrastructure out to The Spit to manage this and we are working with all stakeholders to do this.
“This isn’t the first time it’s happened and there are a lot of businesses at the southern end of The Spit and Main Beach who are affected so we definitely need to improve the infrastructure because otherwise this puts the whole area into gridlock.
“It’s frustrating for everyone and while we don’t want to miss out on events, we have to ask whether this is the right location for events of this size given the infrastructure was not designed for this.”
Plans for improved public transport in the area has been a hot topic in recent years.
Long-time plans for a light rail spur line out to The Spit were shelved after protests from Main Beach residents who were opposed to the disruption construction would cause. Driverless buses were also trialled.