New Year's Eve Event Management, Soul Street 2026 Byron Bay

⁠⁠⁠A1.1. Byron Shire Council is seeking to engage an Event Manager to deliver Soul Street 2026. Soul Street is a free family-friendly event held on New Year’s Eve throughout the centre of Byron Bay and along the foreshore.

Established in 2014, this much-loved community event brings the streets alive with food stalls, interactive lighting and world-class entertainment activated across Jonson Street and Dening Park (Main Beach foreshore).

The free event is attended by up to approximately 15,000 people each year with 5,000 usually at any given time. (Source: NSW Police & Event Management reports).

A1.2 Objectives

Soul Street New Year's Eve (NYE) is a Council-initiated event that leverages creative place activation to enhance community safety. Council delivers Soul Street NYE to manage risk proactively and mitigate potential harm from drug and alcohol-related violence, anti-social behaviour, crowds and traffic congestion.

The aim of NYE – Soul Street is to deliver family-friendly activities in safe public spaces so that community members and visitors staying in the Byron Shire can welcome in the New Year. The aim of the event is to manage the existing demographic who live in, or are staying in the Byron area, over NYE rather than to attract new audiences.

New Year’s Eve Soul Street event aims to:

• deliver family-friendly place activation strategies through performance and participation

• deliver a safe, accessible, artistic and inclusive NYE event in Byron CBD/ foreshore

• minimize any negative NYE impacts on the local environment and community

• demonstrate sustainability practices

• Manage crowds and flow in key areas

The Event will involve a series of place activations in popular locations across the Byron Bay CBD footprint. The Event locations include roads and carparks in central Byron Bay, focused on Jonson Street and Dening Park, (with possible inclusion of Railway Park and Bay Lane or Fletcher street for discussion). The use of these locations for this purpose will be endorsed by the Police Local Area Command (LAC).

Byron Shire Council places great value on minimising the impact our events have on the local environment.