For a few years it was one of the biggest days on Perth's calendar: Beaufort Street closed to cars, bands on every corner and tens of thousands of people squeezed between Highgate and Mount Lawley. Then it was gone. This week a Perth Reddit user asked what happened to the Beaufort Street Festival, and whether the "fun police and NIMBYs" were to blame. The answer, according to the people who ran it, is mostly money and size.
Too big, too expensive
The festival was organised by the non-profit Beaufort Street Network and first ran in 2010. According to the Perth Voice, around 50,000 people turned up in its first year, and crowds reached about 160,000 at its peak.
In March 2016 the network announced the festival would "take a break". Chair Pam Herron told the Perth Voice it had done its job of putting the street on the map, and that funding a one-day event of that scale had become too hard for a community group.
"Funding the festival each year is challenging, particularly for a non-profit community organisation in the current economic conditions." - Pam Herron, Beaufort Street Network chair, 2016
The festival was mostly paid for by the Vincent and Stirling councils and Lotterywest. Its founder, John Carey, then mayor of Vincent, had lobbied for State Government money through Tourism WA, but the Perth Voice reported that never came through. Apart from two paid event companies, almost all the work was done by volunteers who spent much of the year getting ready for a single day.
Photo: Greg O'Beirne via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0). File photo of Beaufort Street, Mount Lawley.
"It lost that local component"
Mr Carey said at the time that ending it was the right call. He said the festival "just got too big, too unwieldy", with not enough money to manage the crowds, and that it had in some sense lost its local feel. The network said it would hold smaller events through the year instead, and might bring back a smaller community celebration one day. A full-scale festival has not returned.
What Perth Reddit remembers
Commenters on the thread mostly remember it fondly. One called it "one of the best, if not the best" street event Perth has had. Others recalled it being "wall to wall people" by the end, and one said they had heard local Beaufort Street businesses struggled as out-of-area food trucks and stalls took over the street, which worked against the festival's original aim.
Several commenters guessed insurance and crowd safety were behind the decision. Those claims are from Reddit users and weren't given as reasons in the 2016 announcement, which pointed to funding and the event's size.
Not everyone accepted the explanation. "Oh it's too popular so let's shut it down," one user wrote, comparing it unfavourably with Sydney's Mardi Gras.
Photo: Evad37 via Wikimedia Commons (CC0). File photo of Beaufort Street.
Where to get your street-party fix now
Mr Carey said in 2016 that Beaufort Street had led a wave of street festivals, with other councils asking for something similar. One of those is still going. A commenter pointed to the Town of Victoria Park's Summer Street Party, which returns on Saturday 14 November from 4pm to 9pm.
The town says Albany Highway will be closed from 6am to midnight between the Dane and Hampshire Street intersection and Sussex Street North. The free event is hosted by Famous Sharron and includes live music, a foam party, carnival rides, food trucks and market stalls. One Reddit user's only complaint was that it doesn't start earlier than 4pm.
Read the full Reddit thread.
Sources: Perth Voice, 1 March 2016; Town of Victoria Park; r/perth.
Main photo: Samuel Wiki via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0). The Beaufort Street Festival in 2014.
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