Face masks to be mandatory at SA’s 2021 Schoolies festival under Covid-19 rules
Get ready to party, SA’s Schoolies festival is on with a few tweaks in the time of Covid-19 – including a ruling on mask wearing.
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Face masks will be mandatory at the 2021 Schoolies Festival, under a Covid-19 plan announced on Tuesday.
“All festival patrons will be required to QR check-in to the festival and free bus service,” Nigel Knowles, chief executive of festival organisers Encounter Youth, said.
“Patrons will need to wear a face mask while in festival sites, despite being outside, to help keep themselves and those around them safe.
“Dancing pods will be set up to allow students to dance in groups of 25 directly in front of the live music stages.”
The festival runs from Friday to Sunday, November 19-21.
The event will be capped at 3500 at any one time across two venues, Warland Reserve and the Soldiers Memorial Gardens at Victor Harbor.
Organisers will sell considerably more than 3500 tickets but don’t expect all the students to attend the two venues at the same time. Live electronic monitoring will be used to check numbers.
Students who don’t wear a mask will be given two warnings and then be evicted on the third approach by organisers.
The Education Department will provide 15,000 disposable masks as well as sanitisers.
Mr Knowles said festival goers were generally compliant with the rules.
“We know that this year it is a privilege for our year 12s to be able to celebrate, and they don’t take that lightly,” he said.
“They’ve had two years in a Covid-19 environment so it has been challenging.”
Almost all year 12s will have finished school by the end of this week, with the music studies exam on Monday being the final SACE stage 2 exam.
If a case of Covid-19 is detected among festival attendees, Encounter Youth would defer to SA Health to manage the outbreak. SA Health had not outlined an outbreak response nor raised the possibility of requiring all attendees needing to be vaccinated, he said.
“We have very good relations with SA Health and SA Police and we will follow their direction,” Mr Knowles said.
An SA Health spokeswoman said if a case was detected, “current protocols would apply”.
This would include risk assessment, contact tracing and quarantine - but the Schoolies Festival Covid-19 management plan “aims to ensure this does not occur”.
This will be the 23rd schoolies festival run by Encounter Youth, a largely volunteer organisation with helpers dressed as the Green team.
On Saturday night, the party dress theme will be the 2000s - or the naughties - with Friday being the traditional design your own T-shirt, and Sunday being uniform night.
All DJs and performers will be from South Australia.
Valid photo ID showing school attendance or date of birth is required for entry.
Free buses for festival ticket holders run from Adelaide and between Goolwa and Victor Harbor.
Year 12s from 2020 who missed out because schoolies was cancelled cannot attend this year’s event because of capacity limits.
Mr Knowles advised festival goers to bring their school student ID to avoid being subjected to extensive scrutiny which was designed to reserve entry for the class of 2021.
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