North Sydney Council slaps $50 fee on Blues Point NYE fireworks view in cost-cutting crackdown

Locals and tourists will be charged $50 to access one of Sydney’s top New Year’s Eve fireworks spots after North Sydney Council endorsed a controversial ticketing plan for this year’s festivities.

Revellers will be forced to fork out $50 for a prime view of the city’s New Year’s Eve fireworks, as North Sydney Council “reluctantly” cashes in on the annual spectacle.

A majority of councillors voted on Monday night to endorse a recommendation to slap a ticket price on access to Blues Point, which has views of the Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge.

The council will sell 8000 tickets for access to Blues Point, described in a council report as “the premier location in North Sydney”, netting it $400,000.

The vote followed staff warning in the report the council’s New Year’s Eve costs were already topping $1m for crowd control, toilets, bins, fencing and traffic management.

Mayor Zoe Baker said she was “reluctantly” supporting the ticketing proposal, for this year only, with an “exceptionally heavy heart”.

Early bird fireworks devotees grab the best spots early in the day. Picture: NewsWire/Monique Harmer

“I have always voted to keep public open space free and access free but, unfortunately, we as a council and a governing body have inherited a really heavy and precarious financial position that has not been relieved,” she said.

Councillor Nicole Antonini said councillors had “little choice” because of the “difficult position” they had been placed in financially, while councillor Shannon Welch said “unfortunately, this is one of those unpleasant things that we have got to do”.

Councillors voted to slap a ticket price on access to Blues Point. Picture: Supplied

An opponent of the plan, councillor Angus Hoy, said he could not “reconcile myself with the idea of this level of privatisation and lack of accessibility in what is a typically free and open public space”.

“This is something that should be free,” he said.

Staff had earlier told councillors the ticketing plan would reduce the council’s bill to manage New Year’s Eve crowds to about $781,000.

But the council was bracing for backlash, with the report admitting the change could spark “dissatisfaction” among locals and tourists used to free entry — and warning of “unsettled behaviour” around entry gates.

Sydney’s NYE fireworks draws in huge crowd numbers across Sydney. Picture: Morris McLennan

“Ticketing for an event which has been free of charge could see large numbers of non-ticket holders arriving at the sites, potentially manifesting in unsettled behaviour near entry gates, dissatisfaction voiced to staff on the ground or complaints to council’s customer service centre,” the report said.

Councillors also considered, but did not endorse, two other possible approaches to managing New Year’s Eve crowd access in 2025-26.

One was to also charge punters for access to nearby Bradfield Park and Lavender Bay in order to fully recoup the council’s costs.

“To achieve full cost recovery, 27,000 tickets would need to be sold at approx $48 per ticket,” the report stated.

The other was retaining the current system of free, but controlled, public entry to the three sites.

Councillors are set to revisit the issue of whether to continue to charge revellers in future years following the 2025-26 festivities.

In recent years, Dudley Page Reserve in Dover Heights has charged more than $60 for New Year’s Eve celebrations, while some harbourside spots have required revellers to obtain free tickets for crowd control.