A prominent Adelaide promoter says Adelaide City Council (ACC) may have just placed the final nail in the coffin of Soundwave Festival in the South Australian capital.

Sacha Sewell, the Adelaide rep for Soundwave and several other popular Australian music festivals, is calling for the state government to take control of the event after the ACC fined Soundwave $10,000 for breach of noise levels.

Soundwave organisers were required to put up a $10,000 bond ahead of this year’s event, with the bond subject to forfeiture should agreed-upon noise levels be exceeded for a significant portion of the event.

“True to form, Adelaide City Council are keeping SW deposit after only 2 (YES, TWO) noise complaints across the weekend. Bravo ACC. Bravo,” promoter AJ Maddah tweeted last week. “Also, noise only exceeded for 8% of the duration of festival and not by more than 2%. Even speed cameras make allowances!”

However, according to the official ACC Twitter account, the Bond was forfeited “by the promoter due to breaching noise limits, not public complaints”. Maddah responded by reminding followers that “the purpose of noise bonds [is] for the benefit of residents”.

Meanwhile, a statement from the ACC to Adelaide Now claims Soundwave exceeded noise levels by two decibels across two stages for 41 percent of the event, i.e. 8 percent above the permitted amount of 33 percent.

The festival’s second noise bond forfeiture in two years now has Sewell calling foul on the ACC, describing their actions as a “handbrake to a vibrant city” and the death knell to Soundwave Adelaide.

“This is just getting absolutely ridiculous,” Sewell told Adelaide Now. “None of the other major events are subject to the same noise SOPs and it’s really only when the State Government has control of the event that it can be done.”

“For example Foo Fighters, Rolling Stones, Clipsal 500, Womad were all controlled by State Government — it’s really time for the Adelaide City Council to stop being a handbrake to major music events and concerts and the State Government took control.”

“It’s in the public realm that it’s not necessarily ‘all is lost’ for Soundwave in Adelaide and that he (AJ Maddah) loves Adelaide audiences and the festival works really well in Bonython Park,” Mr Sewell continued.

“I’m discussing things with AJ to encourage him to bring Soundwave back to South Australia. But why on earth would he when he has to turn around to international artists and say — ‘you might have noise limiters on your equipment’ and that Adelaide City Council are a handbrake to him bringing the show back.”

“I’m having some discussions with various levels of State Government at the moment but this really could be the final nail in the coffin. We were hoping that we could work with ACC this year but they’ve proved their bad policy is unworkable to stage these kind of events.”

“I’ve been told the policy is going to be reviewed. Council have proved with their current policy that they’re not engendering and environment that supports and nurtures major music events.” According to Mr Sewell, Soundwave Adelaide is teetering on a “knife’s edge”.

Further complicating matters are a series of tweets from Maddah in which he alleged that the ACC had informed him that they had “no intention of returning deposit”, adding, “So do we let bands play as loud as they want?”

However, Mr Sewell said the breach was not a result of Maddah’s subsequent claim that Slipknot and their sound technician were “let off the chain” during the US metal outfit’s performance. “No, Slipknot were actually fine, it was the average over the two days,” he said.

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