The Battle Over Bondi NYE Continues

By Georgie Jeffreys on March 30, 2012 in News

After fiery opposition and years of campaigning, the Bondi Beach Precinct Committee (BBPC) has admitted its delight at Waverley Council’s recent decision to reject each of the current tenders for Bondi’s New Year’s Eve party.

Speaking with The Beast earlier this month, Lenore Kulakauskas, a prominent figure within the BBPC, said that while the event may still be hosted by Shore Thing organiser Brandon Saul and his company Mi5, the dynamic and logistics of the NYE party will be radically different.

“To start with, the event will be much, much smaller in size and will finish long before 3am,” Kulakauskas said.

“This year’s NYE will have a distinctly different atmosphere and will be targeted towards families and the wider community.”

In the BBPC’s sights are more family friendly activities such as fireworks, the absence of live music acts, a smaller limit on ticket holders, a finishing time between 1am and 2am and a general move away from attractions aimed at young adults (such as Snoop Dogg).

However, Waverley Mayor John Wakefield said that such guarantees are not for certain and that whilst the event is now available for reformatting, no changes are set in stone.

“What has occurred is that the council has rejected each of the tenders put forward for the 2012 NYE event on Bondi Beach, including that from Mi5 who have previously run Shore Thing.”

In a nutshell, this basically means that the council has granted itself some breathing room and it is now in a position to renegotiate the terms of their previous contract for the party. While Cr Wakefield has officially claimed that no changes are definite, rumour has it that his comments are mere formalities.

Ms Kulakauskas was adamant that by all means and measures, the BBPC would ensure that the NYE party will most definitely be different, in both its target demographic and its overall dynamic.

“The event as it is just does not fit with the community and it has to change, that’s what most people want. These statistics that fly around about Shore Thing ticket holders being made up mostly of Bondi residents are just rubbish,” she said.

“Sure, fifty percent of attendees may have recorded the Bondi postcode as their place of residence, but most of them are the backpackers who are living in the hostels, not actual long term community members.”

Brandon Saul said that he is in support of the dynamic of the event transforming, though he denied that Shore Thing excludes the majority of residents.

“At one of the recent precinct committee meetings, seven people raised their hand in favour of the event being cancelled. Only seven people were in favour of changing the model but thousands and thousands of people actually bought tickets to go to the party,” he said.

“People put forward this idea that Snoop Dogg would attract an undesirable crowd, but let me get this very clear, Snoop Dogg actually attracted the largest proportion of Bondi residents that the event has ever it had,” he said.

“The precinct committee doesn’t represent young adults and they need to be considered just as much as family groups.”

So what is the official outcome? Well, to be honest, no one seems to be entirely sure. What we do know though is that the negotiations are underway and while Shore Thing is not off the cards, it’s not definitely on them either. Brandon Saul and Mi5 seem to be the most likely hosts, but besides that, the battle over Bondi continues.