Perth Voice Interactive

PERTH lord mayor Basil Zempilas wants a major new music or dance event to put his city on the map.

At this week’s council meeting, Mr Zempilas successfully put forward a motion calling for event promoters to pitch a “multi day music/dance festival”.

“We’re all aware that as a city we’re in the search of a permanent, lock-it-in-the-calendar, come back every year event,” Mr Zempilas said.

He says while the state government did a great job with one-off events such as the Cold Play concert or the World Wrestling Entertainment showcase, they didn’t always hit the spot for tourism.

“If you’re a visitor, you can’t plan to come back to Perth for that event because you don’t know when it’s on until it might be announced.

But an event which puts us on the map and generates revenue opportunities and vibrancy for our city, I think is a real possibility, and I’ve got to say my eyes were open to this particular possibility through the success of the Fred Again event back on Easter Saturday.”

Breaking into a couple of his own dance moves, Mr Zempilas said his idea for a dance/music festival appeared to be pushing the right buttons, even prompting an enquiry from the organisers of the major Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in California.

“We accept we’re not going to get the Australian Open Tennis or Formula One Grand Prix and the South Australians have outplayed us over the last couple of years by beating us to two new events, Gather Round and the LIV Golf, so it’s clear we’ll have to create our own.

“If we can get 35,000 people at Langley Park for one act, imagine what we could do with, for example, six big names over a number of days – so let’s create a Perth Dance Festival over the Easter long weekend and make Perth the home of this sort of hugely popular event in the southern hemisphere.”

He said it had generated more responses than any of the other ideas he’d floated since being elected.

The plan got enthusiastic backing from Mr Zempilas’ deputy Clyde Bevan, who said the city couldn’t just sit idly hoping events might pop into its lap.

“Fred Again was a huge success; it proves that new events can be inviting, exciting and vital to our culture and lifestyle in the city,” Cr Bevan said.

Councillor Catherine Lezer was the only one to speak against the idea, saying it could clash with the city’s other aspiration of attracting more residents.

“Given we only have one really big venue, which is Langley Park, all of those residents will be epically impacted,” Cr Lezer said.

“The access to their residences are very hard during these events.

“If it was Easter, as you’ve suggested, how are they going to do Easter Sunday lunch.”

But councillor Liam Gobbert said he was one of those residents and wasn’t phased.

“I’m a resident in the city and you don’t live in the middle of a city and expect cows mooing; that’s a level of noise you expect in a regional area,” Cr Gobbert said.

“We want noise, life and vibrancy in the city and I can only sit with anticipation to see what the city staff can present for our consideration,” he told the chamber.

A report to the council made no mention of how much a major new music festival might set the City back.

by STEVE GRANT