Summernats: Wild brawl erupts between security and revellers at major motoring festival
WATCH: Shocking footage has emerged of “crowd safety” security staff punching and kicking car fans in a wild brawl at a major motoring festival over the weekend.
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Shocking footage has emerged of a brawl between multiple “crowd safety” security staff and car fans attending a major motoring festival over the weekend.
The confronting series of videos shared to social media, show what appears to be bouncers at the Summernats car event at Canberra’s Exhibition Park in Canberra (EPIC) in multiple altercations with revellers.
The Daily Telegraph understands the wild fight broke out on Saturday after the event kicked off on Thursday.
In the video footage, “crowd safety” security in pink high-vis can be seen punching and kicking motor fans.
Witnesses to the brawl can be heard shouting “Come on, boys” and “Get them out of here”, as revellers appear to taunt the security guards by throwing cans at them.
Moments later the guards begin throwing punches and swinging at the rowdy crowd.
One security officer in pink can be heard yelling “I’ll kill you” as the fighting escalates and another shouts “Bash him.”
Multiple men can be seen being punched in the face by the security staff before falling to the ground.
At one stage a “security supervisor” dressed in blue attempts to hold the men in pink back from the loud group.
Outraged event attendees took to Facebook to share their disgust at the behaviour of the men in pink.
“Never in my life, or the history of Summernats have I ever seen such putrid behaviour by security or ‘crowd safety’,” attendee Adam Vlahos said on social media.
“Whatever these drunk idiots did or didn’t do, the ‘crowd safety’ aren’t meant to incite violence, punch on and act like a bunch of gangsters.
“Absolute Neanderthal behaviour. I hope charges get laid.”
Another car fanatic said the brawl was the “most disgusting thing” he had ever witnessed.
“Crowd safety and security is meant to be trained to de-escalate these types of situations but turns into king hits, dog punches too, head kicks and death threats,” Josh Sanders said on a Facebook post.
ACT Police confirmed in a statement they were aware of the incident and video footage and were investigating the altercations.
“ACT Policing is aware of an incident that occurred yesterday afternoon inside EPIC,” the statement read.
“Investigations into the incident are ongoing and no arrests have been made at this time.
“No further comment will be made while investigations are ongoing.”
The Daily Telegraph has contacted the Summernats festival organisers and EPIC for comment, with the exhibition park declining to comment.
“We have no comment,” a spokesman told The Daily Telegraph.
The Summernats festival is a four-day annual car event which has taken place in Canberra since 1987 and attracts over 120,000 car enthusiasts.
Popular among tourists, the event rakes in $20 million for the ACT economy each year with over 2500 cars displayed as part of the showcase.
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