Early finish for Perth's Big Day Out

A tightening of noise conditions for the 2013 Big Day Out music festival at Perth's Claremont Showground will see the event finish at 10pm - an hour earlier than scheduled.
Noise concerns from local residents had led the Town of Claremont not to approve the application for the concert, however, Western Australian Environment Minister Bill Marmion stepped in to approve the event with its earlier finish.

Explaining his decision Minister Marmion stated "I've taken into consideration the Council's views and advice from the Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC) and weighed these against the overall benefit of the festival and ways to mitigate noise concerns.

"The new conditions state that the festival must finish by 10pm and DEC will monitor noise levels throughout the event.

"The conditions enable some exceedences of noise levels to take into account factors over which the organisers have no control such as changing winds or unusual weather conditions.

"I acknowledge that this is a challenging event to manage with respect to noise, but consider that the proposed conditions of approval are reasonable and the organisers should be able to comply with them.

"Given the earlier closing time, I have allowed the organisers to start the event one hour earlier, at 10am."

In recent years the Big Day Out has had an uneasy relationship with the Town of Claremont, moving the 2012 to McCallum Park having labelling the negotiations with the Council as "difficult and protracted".

Claremont Mayor Jock Barker told local media "The Big Day Out is not welcome and I dont want to see it back in Claremont.

"I was happy to see the back of it. It does nothing useful for the town."

With a capacity of up to 40,000, a move back to the Claremont Showground would suggest that the Big Day Out's local promoter Chris Knight expects the 2013 event to bounce-back from this year's dramatically lowered attendance figure of 12,000.

Ministerial conditions for events such as the 2013 Big Day Out are set under regulation 18 of the Environmental Protection (Noise) Regulations and are not subject to appeal.

The DEC will issue the concert organisers with their approval which includes the new Ministerial conditions.