Mardi Gras Fair Day cancelled as more sites confirmed
Sydney's asbestos woes have worsened, with the announcement a major Mardi Gras event planned for an inner city park will be cancelled, after the discovery of contaminated mulch on site.
Transcript
00:00 Mardi Gras organisers and the City of Sydney announced this morning that the Fair Day event,
00:06 which is annually a major feature of the Mardi Gras Festival, it sees more than 70,000 people
00:12 descend on Victoria Park in Sydney's inner west for musical performances, food and cultural
00:20 stalls and drag shows.
00:24 That event this year will have to be cancelled due to asbestos being detected in that park.
00:29 Now this continues an ongoing saga in Sydney where asbestos detections in contaminated
00:35 mulch were started by the discovery of asbestos in the newly opened Roselle Parklands and
00:41 have since grown at sites throughout the city.
00:44 Organisers announced that because of that and the timing of it this week, that major
00:48 event on Sunday will have to be cancelled.
00:51 There was a twist in this this morning when the inner west council mayor, which is the
00:56 adjacent council area, offered to accommodate the festival at one of his parks nearby.
01:02 Now the Camperdown Memorial Park is actually quite close to the Victoria Park.
01:07 It's hosted the event before.
01:10 But when we put this to the Mardi Gras organisers, they've said that the logistics at this point
01:15 just don't look like that's at all possible.
01:18 Here's what Mardi Gras CEO Gil Beckwith had to say.
01:21 The impacts on our artists, our storeholders, our community, our suppliers, our staff, our
01:28 volunteers, there is no one that's not impacted by this.
01:31 But for us to pivot so fast for an event that takes 12 months to plan is really, really
01:36 difficult.
01:37 Well Ros, on the lighter side of things, they've announced that for the Bondi Beach Party,
01:42 which kicked off here, it had its debut as part of the World Pride Festival last year.
01:48 It's being reprised again this year as it was seen as such a big success.
01:52 They've announced the headline act for that beach party here at Bondi Beach.
01:57 And they've said that it's going to be Sophie Ellis Baxter, famed from the early 2000s hit
02:03 Murder on the Dance Floor.
02:05 Now it's an announcement that will appeal to audiences young and a little bit older.
02:10 It's had a reprise from the movie Saltburn recently and it's become a viral hit on social
02:19 media websites like Instagram and TikTok.
02:23 So that was their big announcement.
02:25 It was very well received by a lot of the people who came along to hear it.
02:29 So that's something to look forward to after the disappointing news.
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