This is how the Gold Coast parties — Surfers Paradise LIVE puts lame Games Festival 2018 to shame
NOW this is how the Gold Coast parties. Surfers Paradise LIVE’s free weekend of street party-style concerts by Jimmy Barnes and Daryl Braithwaite showcased how good events on the Goldie roll.
Entertainment
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A PERFECT demonstration of how good events on the Goldie roll, Surfers Paradise LIVE’s free weekend of street party-style concerts put the lame Commonwealth Games Festival 2018 program to shame.
Daryl Braithwaite and Jimmy Barnes’ headlining sets on the festival’s main stage on the beachfront, under the iconic Surfers Paradise sign, on Saturday night were everything Festival 2018 promised — but failed to deliver.
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Families and longtime fans of the ARIA Hall of Famers poured into the central Surfers precinct to see their idols play the fourth free annual live music festival, presented by Surfers Paradise Alliance.
CEO Mike Winlaw said the Alliance hoped to attract even bigger headliners next year.
“Having Barnes and Daryl on the one gig, we’re heading to the Johnny Farnhams or more, maybe even an international band next year,” he said.
High rise balconies and rooftop bars along Cavill Mall were filled with people enjoying a bird’s eye view of the performances, many of them over dinner or drinks.
Bruce Bishop Carpark was near capacity, on-street parking spaces were full as far north as Narrow Neck and trams into the precinct from Helensvale and Broadbeach were packed.
While official figures are yet to be finalised, Mr Winlaw said this year’s LIVE had drawn considerably larger crowds since it opened with the Gold Coast Music Awards ceremony and concert on Thursday night.
“The crowd for the awards on Thursday was about 8000, which was a good night. We’re really happy with that,” he said.
“Last year we had 56,000 more people than the seasonal average across the weekend and the crowds this year have been much bigger.
“This year our target was 80,000 extra.”
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Police said crowds were well behaved, with no major incidents reported on Saturday.
Mr Winlaw said the feedback from traders had also been positive.
“McDonald’s is up 54 per cent on last year,” he said.
“From a hotelier perspective, they’re reporting very high occupancy this weekend with a lot of packages sold around LIVE.”
Mr Winlaw said the Alliance would look at raising the height of the festival’s main stage and “pushing it back to the beach a bit more” next year to give audiences in the mall a better view of the performers.
“We’ll also look at placing a screen in the mall,” he said.
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He said more temporary toilets would be added and the licensed One Cavill Beachfront Bar next to the main stage would be expanded.
“This is the fourth year of LIVE and our second year with the Gold Coast Music Awards. We’re growing piece by piece and getting bigger,” he said.
Saturday night’s LIVE headliners enjoyed each other’s shows as much as their fans, with Barnes posting a picture on Instagram of him and wife Jane backstage with Braithwaite.
“Daryl Braithwaite just killed it at the beach here at Surfers Paradise Live. We are going to rock it out,” Barnes wrote in the caption.
Barnes’ shows are well and truly family affairs these days, with wife Jane and daughters Elly-May and Eliza-Jane on backing vocals and son Jackie on drums.
Jane posted a photo of her view from the stage on Instagram that showed crowds stretched down Cavill Mall, captioning it: “Rockin’ the sands at#SurfersparadiseLive #fromwhereIstand.”
Surfers Paradise LIVE ended on a high last night with free headlining sets by Kate Ceberano and Jon Stevens on the beachfront stage.
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