Rutherglen leg of A Day on The Green cancelled after ‘hazardous’ haze
Smoke haze has forced the “devastated” organisers of popular festival A Day on The Green to cancel their Rutherglen concert. Cold Chisel was set to rock the stage, but the gig was axed after hazardous conditions failed to improve.
VIC News
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Cold Chisel has no room in its itinerary to reschedule tonight’s cancelled A Day on the Green concert.
The band was this morning forced to axe the show at All Saints Estate in Victoria’s Rutherglen, near the Murray River, after bushfire smoke was deemed “hazardous”.
A Day on the Green promoter Michael Newton said band members have international commitments as soon as their string of summer shows ends on February 9.
“There were no other dates,” Newton said. “We could have done Wednesday night at Rutherglen, but they’re saying it’ll be Friday at the earliest before the air improves.”
At this stage, Cold Chisel’s sold-out A Day on the Green shows at Rochford Wines in the Yarra Valley on Friday and Geelong’s Mt Duneed Estate on Saturday are scheduled to go ahead as planned — 32,000 tickets have been sold for both events.
Around 7000 tickets had been sold for the Rutherglen show.
“The air quality on both those sites has improved from yesterday,” Newton said. “We’ll just monitor that as we go, do the same thing as we’ve done up here, keep people updated.”
Newton arrived at the Rutherglen site on Monday night and was ready to pull the pin on the show.
“Worksafe had shut the site down yesterday,” Newton said. “We were still trying to make the show happen. I was on site for an hour and started to cough and get itchy eyes. The EPA’s air quality index says hazardous is between 300 and 500 and it’s over 600 today.”
Promoters were concerned about punters with asthma being triggered by the poor air – some had already flagged their concerns on the A Day on the Green Facebook page.
Several fans who were already in the area said there was thick smoke in the region.
A neighbour who lives opposite All Saints Estate, Jacquelene Monk, wrote on the page that visibility would be an issue, along with potential health concerns.
“The smoke was very thick,” she wrote. “If you were up the back of the venue, you would have been hard pressed to see anything on the stage.”
“There’s also no way Jimmy (Barnes) could have sung, sucking in that air,” Newton added, concerned about disrupting the rest of the Cold Chisel tour.
A Day on the Green is insured by Lloyds of London, with the firm greenlighting the cancellation overnight.
“We had to give ourselves every opportunity for the show to happen,” Newton said. “The bushfires are all over the news in the UK, all the vision of people in Melbourne with face masks. The Albury Races were cancelled, the Albury airport has been shut down.
“If I had my time again I probably would have tried to call it earlier. But with weather forecasts and wind conditions, you’re never 100 per cent sure of what’s going to clear and what’s going to stay. I think we’ve done the right thing.”
Newton said air pollution from bushfire smoke is a new frontier that promoters of outdoor events will have to face.
Elton John is A Day on the Green’s next artist to play at Rutherglen, on January 29.
“Our insurance underwriter has already said they don’t know what’s going to happen next summer. We’ve already seen (festivals) Lost Paradise and The Falls cancelled. There’s so much going on,” he said.
“It is concerning as a promoter. It’s something we’ve got to be aware of moving forward.
“And be aware of the ramifications and the flow on effect of what can happen and being responsible for a whole lot of people going into these regional areas.
“Look at Falls, that concert site is surrounded by bush. It’s a new area that the whole country is moving into. A different world.”
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Some ticketholders from the Rutherglen show have posted on the A Day on the Green Facebook page when they get their tickets refunded they will donate the ticket cost back to bushfire-related charities and are encouraging others to do the same.
Cold Chisel is partnering with Foodbank on their summer tour, while Newton said they will have collection tins for the CFA at all A Day on the Green shows over summer including Elton John and a-ha concerts.
In December, Lorne’s popular Falls Festival was transformed into a ghost town after thousands of music lovers were told to leave amid extreme fire risk.