NSW Premier On ‘Vivid Sydney’ Drone Show Crowd Management: “We Need To Do Better”

New South Wales (NSW) Premier, Chris Minns says the NSW Government needs to do better at crowd management at Vivid Sydney‘s Love Is In The Air drone show, where 2 crowd crushes affecting around 17,000 people around Circular Quay occurred on Saturday night.

Speaking on Today this morning (Monday 10th of June), the NSW Premier said he believed the crowd size could be attributed in part to the cost-of-living crisis and the draw of a large-scale free event & said the resulting crowd crush criticism was “fair”:

Not good & not enough. We need to do better. We didn’t anticipate the crowds on that night. What I can say is that the organisers, the NSW Police worked quickly to learn from the mistakes of the night before. They did a major walkthrough with all the agencies, Destination NSW as well as NSW Police.

Some street closures were brought in earlier in the day. Some of the crowd barricades were moved to different sections & the following night worked better.

I’m grateful that we learned from the mistakes of the night before but I want to see families out enjoying Sydney. I know people are doing it tough at the moment. When you’ve got free entertainment & this is an opportunity to get with your families to spend time together, you’re going to take it up & enjoy something that doesn’t cost any money. We’ve got to make sure it’s a safe night out. Get out there and enjoy it.

Chris Minns, New South Wales Premier

Vivid Sydney & NSW Government agencies undertook the major walk-through on Sunday morning according to news.com.au.

Last night, the 2nd of the 3 drone shows occurred but thankfully, capacity limits were enforced this time & no incidents occurred. The final Love Is In The Air drone show is on at 9:10pm, Saturday the 15th of June, which is also the final night of Vivid Sydney 2024 – Humanity. Crowds are expected to be significant but two-thirds the size of last weekend’s drone shows’ crowds.