BMEE to help ensure Winter Magic lives on

The Blue Mountains Economic Enterprise (BMEE) has agreed to lead the process of reviewing, assessing, evaluating and coming up with concrete solutions to help manage the festival’s future.

Winter Magic was cancelled this year (due to be its 25^th anniversary) because of difficulties with fulfilling all requirements in a short space of time.

In particular, there were concerns that there was not enough time for preparation of a traffic management report.

Traffic management is a major issue with the event because of extensive closures which are necessary to accommodate the parade up Katoomba Street and stalls which extend into Bathurst Road.

There are also increasing on-road security measures required by police, as well as the need for risk management and evacuation plans.

Bernie Fehon, chief executive officer of BMEE, said he expected to engage consultants to help prepare the plans.

He said council wanted to be “a bit at arms length” from the process, while also recognising the importance of the festival to the community.

It is estimated the festival was attended by more than 43,000 people last year and contributed $2.4 million to the local economy last year.

Mr Fehon emphasised that the festival was “a community event. It will continue to be a community event is the expectation.”

“BMEE would be encouraged to engage consultants… and also look at potential improvements to the sustainability of the even in the long term.”

This might involve looking at the size of the festival, whether it has become too big and if there might be better ways of managing it.

Festival president, Naomi Parry, said the committee was hopeful of getting some support with critical planning documents, like the traffic and risk management plans.

“We haven’t yet met with the BMEE to discuss what this is going to look like,” she said, adding that “we are very mindful of time constraints and want to get stuck into planning the 2019 festival as soon as possible.”