You know what it’s like. You go for a walk and discover that a large part of the foreshore has become a closed-off and ticketed zone, or a section of the park has been fenced off with mesh or black plastic, or a customary road is closed for the exclusive use of others.
This week (October 2016) the fencing is going up on the St Kilda foreshore for yet another mega event. On Saturday 15th and Sunday 16th (October 2016), from noon until 9pm, the beer drinking and music festival Oktoberfest will take place. It is described as a ‘cultural event’, which, given a broad understanding of ‘culture’ it is.
But is it the sort of culture our city wishes to pride itself on?
The commercial event organisers, Lets Go Fest, have circularised residents about noise levels, possibly in response to the many complaints that followed the recent window-rattling barrage from Listen Out, which locked up the Catani Gardens for a week. Already this week the South Beach Reserve saw the Leukaemia Foundation’s Light the Night fundraiser. It seems we’re running a major event every week.
This is a direct consequence of Council policy. Each year the City of Port Phillip calls for expressions of interest to run events in our public areas. In return for a fee, successful bidders are allowed to fence off public land and charge entry. Special consideration is given to those who can afford a ticket. The ordinary rule on alcohol may be suspended.
Event saturation is especially a problem for the St Kilda end of Lake Ward, but unless councillors speak up, there is nothing to stop the opportunistic licensing of public space spreading right along the beachfront and into every park. Let’s not forget the biggest of them all - the Grand Prix! There are also the beach side triathlon and fun runs, which see the regular closure of our roads.
Of course these events bring in revenue, and many are worthy of our support, but there appears to be no limit to the number or type of events Council is currently prepared to licence.
We need to clarify the number of events our foreshore and parks can endure and still be available for their primary function as public open spaces. How many days a month should a public park or green space be fenced off (including set up and pack up)? Council may be doing this already – and if it is, then its calibration of residents’ tolerance might be wrong.
We need to choose, more carefully, the type of events that we want as reflections of our city and our culture. Is it just ‘anything goes’ if it can return a dollar to the City? That isn’t good enough. We are a tolerant community, but our tolerance is being pushed to the limit. Revenue should not be the only consideration. It has to go hand-in-hand with other questions: does the income compensate for the resident amenity foregone, and does it accord with the sort of culture we wish to promote?
I admit that Council has a complex task balancing these considerations, but at the moment it seems that money might be the thing that’s doing the talking. Council must lay down a policy that addresses the broader community issues. The use of our public spaces is not just a management issue or a revenue issue. It is a cultural issue. These events need a curatorial judgment: do they reflect the culture of the city, as we want it to be? The commercialisation of public land creates tensions between the exclusive character of ticketed events and the quiet, inclusive culture of those same public spaces.
We are a generous community. We share. We like to be inclusive. We understand that people want to come to visit our foreshore; that our beaches belong to all of Melbourne, not just us. Significant parts of our economy depend on the tourist dollar. But how do these closed events benefit local residents? Yes, locals may attend – for a price (the tickets for Oktoberfest vary from $25 to $85, for which you get one stein of beer on entry). But many residents actually avoid the foreshore when these events are on. Even then, they are still paying a price. They are paying in loss of amenity. This has to be taken into account when calculating the net benefit to the city of licensing these events.
On the other side of the ledger, the St Kilda Festival is free to all, with no barrier to attendance. But it costs us $1.5m each year. Is this because it’s the single most important cultural annual event in Port Phillip? It used to flag our city as the live music capital of Melbourne but does it still do that in a meaningful sense? Is it still relevant to how we think of ourselves as sheltering a community of musicians and artists, filmmakers and writers? We might have the best street party venue in Melbourne, but is it being put to best use?
Is the culture of our city becoming increasingly defined by mega events? What is their relationship to those more local cultural activities, with clearer community licence, such as our theatres and galleries, music venues and film festivals? The Pride March is symbolic of our inclusiveness as a community. (We need to keep pushing hard in the next Council term to have the state-funded Pride Centre located in Port Phillip.)
Our city should be a collective work of art.
I don’t mean it should just be decorated with works of art, and I’m not talking only about the built environment and the look of the place, which I do care deeply about. I’m talking more about art and culture in the sense of civic culture, the public expression of how we imagine ourselves as a community.
And this expression is more than simply supporting the arts financially (which I am more than committed to doing), because it imagines the community as comprising people who are all, one way or another, culturally productive and culturally engaged. The culture of our city is rich and complex. It ranges from mass popular culture to sitting quietly on a bench, from shopping to swimming. It takes in every activity that goes to create the character of the city in which we live.
Council should curate events in our public spaces in accordance with a better understanding of the character of our communities. This requires more than a vision of the bottom line; it needs a cultural vision that works with who we are and what we have, not what we can buy in.
Culture is not a given; it is something we make. Culture is community wealth.
Culture incorporates everything about how we live and who we are. It is a complex thing requiring real effort to comprehend and an acute sensibility to curate. That is a process of which I want to be part, because I think sustaining a rich and inclusive cultural life is ultimately the City’s most profound responsibility to its residents.