Source : PERTHNOW NEWS
With the opening night of the Brisbane Festival on Friday, Australia’s Olympic city is preparing to handle massive crowds.
It’s new artistic director Ebony Bott’s inaugural festival program, under the banner Switch On, Light Up, Come Alive.
Amid the cost-of-living crisis, almost 70 per cent of the program is free, with events stretching from dawn until the early hours around a central hub in South Bank.
Attractions at the festival hub include a Giant Sing Along – karaoke for a crowd, with a huge screen and 32 microphones.
But festival-goers will be working out how to get home from the popular Riverfire event on Saturday night, due to strike action affecting city ferries.
There will be no ferries operating from 4am Saturday until 4am Sunday.
Buses will be made available to allow for an extra 36,500 trips on top of normal services within 90 minutes of Riverfire finishing – five times the additional capacity available in 2025.
Brisbane City Council’s ferry contractor RiverCity Ferries is locked in a dispute with the Maritime Union of Australia over pay and safety conditions.”You cannot operate a safe and reliable ferry service while ignoring fatigue, eroding conditions and refusing to properly compensate the people doing the work,” said the union’s Jaiden Simpson.
The council has warned the union not to ruin a great Brisbane event just to make a point.
“Riverfire is one of Brisbane’s biggest nights of the year and it’s an absolute disgrace the union is planning to mess with it,” said the council’s Andrew Wines.
“Brisbane families shouldn’t be used as bargaining chips … picking Riverfire weekend is nothing but a stunt designed to cause maximum pain for maximum attention.”
An additional sixth fireworks barge has been installed between the Victoria Bridge and Neville Bonner Bridge, bringing the fireworks spectacle closer to the CBD. Brisbane Festival runs from Friday to September 26.
AAP travelled to Brisbane with the assistance of Brisbane Festival.
