The very first Snowtunes took place last weekend at the freezing cold Lake Jindabyne in New South Wales. Crowds of people headed down there for performances by headliners Hermitude, Allday and Tkay Maidza, as well as Slumberjack, Paces, Kronic, Losty, Fortafy, Northie and Bad Decisions feat. Konvex.
But apparently, things didn’t go down so well in terms of safety.
The NSW Office of Liquor, Gaming and Racing (OLGR) have reported a number of serious breaches to safety and security. The press release provided by OLGR lists 12 different incidents that occurred during the one night event, many of which involve alcohol and minors. The release mentions that there were “not enough roaming guards” to supervise the 3,600 people in attendance.
Allday has said in a Facebook post that he was the “DJ” (which has now been changed to “disc jockey”) who yelled, “XXXX the police sniffer dogs. People just want to get high and have fun”.
The organisers of the event were unaware of this release, and weren’t exactly happy about it. According to Triple J, they claimed to have “met all security requirements with a high concentration of qualified personnel” and received “extremely positive” reviews from both all present security and police.
The Snowtunes organisers have locked horns with OLGR, saying:
“These issues were not raised with Snowtunes organisers post the event, and the organisers are taking steps to resolve the situation with OLGR by providing all evidence and supporting statements from qualified personnel that stand by Snowtunes in refuting the claims made in this press release. The organisers require OLGR to provide clarity and evidence to support their claims.”
OLGR have said that they will take legal action, so let’s see how this turns out.