- Crowds flock to 2015 Psyfari Festival

In light of Police from the Mudgee LAC expressing that they’re strongly against the upcoming Psyfari Festival near Lithgow, the organisers have released a statement in response to the opposition.

Their full response is below.

The annual Psyfari Festival is once again ramping up its safety initiatives, with the 2016 event looking on track to be one of the safest festivals in Australia.

Psyfari Festival has always had a strong emphasis on creating a safe and welcoming environment for all ages, and the event has never taken any shortcuts in regards to the safety of attendees. Continuing the trend of increased safety, and also as a result of tragic car accident that occurred in Bilpin last year, the festival has been particularly focusing on driver safety, alongside other harm reduction methods. Even with these new initiatives in place however, the festival has been under increased pressure by the NSW police force.

The festival has significantly increased safety efforts, including but not limited to:

Important to mention is that most of these safety initiatives had already been planned before any concerns had been raised by police, despite organisers repeatedly contacting police for feedback since February.

Unfortunately some members of NSW Police have the opinion that BYO events are not safe, and that camping festivals should not be held in remote areas.

The statistics are quite clear though, with thousands of people having attended the festival over the past 3 years, and almost no incidents. This event has proven to be incredibly safe and with a very clean track record.

The opinion that this is an unsafe "rave party" is an insult to the festival, and this opinion has only been found in people who have never attended the event, and never even spoken to the organisers before coming to this conclusion.

Run by a team of organisers and crew who volunteer thousands of hours of their time for free, Psyfari Festival is a family friendly camping event, with a strong focus on music, arts, performances, costumes, and coming together as a community.

The statistics are clear. This is a festival with thousands of people attending and less incidents than the average Friday night at the pub, yet Police view it differently, assuming the remote location was chosen to evade the authorities.

The attitude of police is ironic, given that they believe events like this should be shut down, but that events like ute musters are ok, despite much higher levels of danger, intoxication, and incidents requiring police intervention.

This attitude has come as a shock to organisers, considering police have always been welcome at Psyfari, with police having attended the festival each year, with no services required from them, and consistently positive feedback.

The location was chosen for it's natural beauty and lack of neighbours to impact by noise, not to avoid the authorities, and the festival has been welcomed by the local community, with many residents attending each year.

This is a family friendly event where people bring their children and their parents. It would have been nice for these senior members of police to attend, or at least communicate with organisers before deciding that these events should be banned from the area.

Unfortunately NSW police would rather have these festivals disappear, however the organisers hope to work alongside police to ensure a safe event, and show them that this is not the unsafe out of control party that they imagine. All other authorities have shown a willingness to work together with the goal of ensuring safety, unlike the police approach of shutting things down.

Organisers have addressed every genuine concern of the authorities, have increased spending on safety measures by hundreds of thousands of dollars, and are looking forward to showing the true nature and intentions of the event.

Members of the media are welcome to attend, and should contact info@psyfari.com to request tickets.