Huge Vivid Festival crowds overwhelm Sydney CBD transport

Crowds flocking to Sydney's Circular Quay for the final nights of the Vivid Sydney annual lights festival (Saturday 8th and Sunday 9th June) overwhelemed the city's transport and filled vantage points.

Sydney Ferries reached capacity and parts of the CBD remained closed for several hours, with organisers using social media to ask people to explore events away from Circular Quay.

Thousands had flocked to installations around Circular Quay, Darling Harbour, Walsh Bay and Milsons Point on Saturday and Sunday, packing trains and causing traffic chaos.

The 18 day festival closed on Sunday night with organisers and NSW Government officials urging people to avoid using private cars to travel into the city and to allow extra time for their journies if using public transport.

NSW Roads Minister Duncan Gay told to 2UE radio that weekend crowds were akin to those seen at New Year's Eve "and frankly we need to treat it that way."

Last year the event attracted 500,000 visitors across its 18 days but numbers this year are believed to have exceeded that with more than 100,000 people attended this year's opening weekend alone.

Minister Gay added "I think we were slightly blindsided on the huge leap this year.

"It had been growing steadily and we believe what we had in place was correct. There was a quantum leap this year in the numbers of people attending."

While some have called for the event to run for an extended period, a 10-year creative industries action plan released this month by a NSW Government taskforce recommends further growth for Vivid next year.

Destination NSW Chief Eexecutive Sandra Chipchase said details of next year's festival would be revealed "shortly".

Organisers would consider how to approach next year's event in light of the weekend crush, such as by doing more to encourage people to use public transport, visit earlier in the festival and earlier in the week.

Chipchase added "every major event you run, you learn something and we'll be taking the lessons from this year, applying them for next year all of the issues, we'll be looking at how can we manage them more effectively."

24th May 2013 - VIVID SHINES A LIGHT ON SYDNEY