Festival carpark chaos plan
Promiseland organisers with four-step road map to avoid gridlock
The organisers behind a threeday festival set for Doug Jennings Park this year have shared their four-step plan to prevent the traffic chaos that has plagued the area during previous events.
Promiseland announced they are coming to Doug Jennings Park on October 4, 5 and 6 with headlining acts Rema, Metro Boomin, Asake, Miguel and more.
On Thursday, they released a four-step plan which they said will get festivalgoers to and from the festival faster including free shuttle buses, road closures to ease congestion, a waiting lounge at the exit and running ferries every 15 minutes.
It comes a month after more than 30,000 Gold Coasters were left with a sour taste after attending a surprise gig for UK producer and artist Fred Again.
The event was described as a “human stampede” causing traffic chaos, hundreds of hire bikes were abandoned at public parks and patrons were forced to walk more than 5km to get out of the area.
Promiseland organisers said it was their “top priority” to make entering and leaving the festival as seamless as possible.
“We’ve invested in 10 times more free shuttle buses to move people to the festival and back,” they said on their Instagram post.
They said they have worked with Gold Coast City Council to try to remove the major bottleneck on roads outside the event area.
“This bottleneck is just outside Sea World and this road change will help speed up arrivals and departures from the festival,” they said.
Organisers have added a waiting lounge that will be built near the exit for “those who want to wait it out and leave later”.
“This area will be equipped with seating and hydration stations,” they said.
“Chill and reflect on the day in a safe space and avoid the rush.”
Their fourth step was to add ferries which will run to Doug Jennings Park every 15 minutes between 10.30am to 1pm on the day.
Cross Promotions owner Billy Cross – who will be running the bars at the Promiseland festival – said the plan was “exceptional” and that similar steps helped ease congestion at the Souled Out concert last month.
Mr Cross said after working on events at the Spit for more than 20 years, he was confident the events space was “here to stay”.
“We just have to make sure we cross the Ts and dot the Is and make sure there is a good traffic management plan,” he said. “It’s one of the best festival sites in Australia, let alone the Gold Coast.”
One ticketholder commented on the post and “perfect, because that long-a** walk wasn’t it”.
Others asked why they weren’t allowed to park in the lot nearby and the organisers said “having vehicles go into the SeaWorld Drive, including (rideshares), is exactly the reason traffic gets extremely congested”.
They advised people who wanted to park nearby to go to Cypress Ave and take the shuttle bus into the venue.
“We’ve invested in 10 times more free shuttle buses to move people to the festival and back
Promiseland social post