Sydney Residents Are Bloody Furious About A New Burger Festival In Newtown
Warning: this story is going to make you very hungry.
Who knew burgers could be this controversial?
The team behind pop-up burger shop Hashtag Burgers have lodged an application for a burger festival in Newtown, but they’re being met with stiff resistance from local residents.
The event is called Burgapalooza and was held at the University of Sydney’s Manning Bar last year. It showcased some of Sydney’s best burger vendors including Pub Life Kitchen, Milk Bar by Cafe Ish and Bar Luca.
The organisers of Burgapalooza want to make it even bigger this year, and they’ve got their sights on Newtown’s popular Camperdown Memorial Rest Park — home to the Newtown Festival and lots of excellent dogs, for a new venue.
In a development application lodged with the local council, Burgapalooza is described as a “two-day burger festival which aims to bring some of Sydney’s biggest burger chefs together in one place”. “The event features unique burgers from each chef and is accompanied by live music, entertainment and beverages in an outdoor family-friendly environment.”
The event is scheduled to run over a full weekend in March and punters will be charged an entry fee of about $15. The organisers are expecting up to 8,000 to take part in the festival, which will take over a chunk of the park opposite The Courthouse Hotel (featured in Coldplay’s ‘A Sky Full Of Stars’ video clip).
But the proposal has attracted over 70 complaints, with residents expressing their concern that the event will limit public access to the park.
“In the nine years I have lived here there has never been a commercial event in Camperdown Memorial Rest Park, and I wouldn’t want to start a precedent,” one resident wrote. “Primarily the park is for the enjoyment of residents and visitors to the area. Every weekend the park is full of people enjoying the area and is only disrupted once a year by a fundraiser, the Newtown Festival which is non-commercial in nature.”
“I object to this event being held due to the commercial nature of the event which closes off access to the public park for an entire two days. It’s unprecedented,” said another.
Camperdown Memorial Rest Park is an enormously popular hang out spot for inner-west residents, particularly dogs.
Many of the objections highlighted the park’s popularity. “Completely inappropriate use of the park facilities which are used by thousands of local residents each and every weekend. The park should always remain non-commercial or not-for-profit — if for a good cause. This event is neither of the two,” one said.
Others argued the event should be scrapped because “the whole burger phenomenon is over”.
It’s easy to sympathise with a lot of the objections. Camperdown Memorial Rest Park is a great place to spend a sunny weekend afternoon, and losing a section of the park to a ticketed, relatively expensive event (it’s $15 entry, plus $10 for a burger) is going to negatively impact a bunch of people (and dogs).
But some of the objections reflect the worst of Newtown upper-middle class sentiment. “I feel a better venue for this event would be the Bondi Pavilion or even better, Penrith Panthers,” one person wrote.
Why? Because only people in Penrith eat burgers? Some of the most absurdly overrated and overpriced burgers (looking at you, Mary’s) are in Newtown, just metres from the park. There’s a valid debate to be had about whether public land like this should be handed over to commercial operators, but we should be able to have that discussion without sledging people from the western suburbs.
The festival proposal is open for comment until February 14, and the council will make a decision after that date. Until then the battle will rage on: burgers or dogs?
