It's not only Vic. Square businesses that want new restrictions on large "pop-up" venues. Photo: Nat Rogers/InDaily

The Australian Hotels Association will urge Adelaide City Council to consider tighter restrictions for all large “pop-up” Fringe venues – not just for the under-fire Royal Croquet Club.

Last week, Adelaide City Council flagged its preference that the trading hours of the Victoria Square-based Royal Croquet Club be limited to 1am on Friday and Saturday evenings, and that loud music be shut off by midnight.

AHA general manager Ian Horne told InDaily this morning that many businesses in the East End were also suffering during February and March because of the presence of large Fringe venues such as the Garden of Unearthly Delights and Gluttony.


“It’s now become a battle of the big pop-ups, to some extent,” said Horne.

“That hospitality offering, predominantly in Victoria Square, but also in the East Parklands, means that (customers) are captured; they’re corralled in those places, and they don’t go anywhere else.

“While there’s no question of overwhelming support for the Fringe and the positive things that the Fringe does, there is a genuine concern among the bricks-and-mortar that the sheer size of the hospitality component – and now competing with other significant pop-up hospitality in the East Parklands – (means) that we’ve reached a tipping point where in fact damage is being done to the viability of a number of bricks and mortar (businesses).

“We in no way would advocate that the major pop-ups need to be shut down, but there needs to be some balance.

“No doubt, you could find some (business owners) in the East End or around Victoria Square who are very, very pleased.

“But the surveys we’ve undertaken (show) that overwhelmingly that the majority say that it’s gone too far.”

Horne will join AHA colleague Wendy Bevan and Restaurant and Catering SA chief Sally Neville to make the case for bricks-and-mortar businesses in a presentation to tomorrow night’s council meeting.

Horne said he agreed with Royal Croquet Club director Tom Skipper that, if new rules are to be applied to the Victoria Square venue, then it was only fair to apply those rules equally to larger “pop-up” venues in the East End.

However, Horne also suggested that the restrictions for the Royal Croquet Club mooted at last week’s committee meeting did not go far enough.

“There needs to be a consideration of the physical size and capacity (of the Royal Croquet Club); there needs to be a consideration of whether it is appropriate to charge $5 entry fees for what is public space – and if so, there needs to be a consideration of the rent that the whole area is charged by ACC,” Horne said.

“Is it fair to rent out the heartland of Adelaide, prime location, at what many consider a peppercorn rent?

“That’s a challenge for ACC to work out, not us.”

Meanwhile, as businesses in the East End and Victoria Square argue for more restrictions on large pop-ups, traders in the West End are continuing to push for large pop-ups to come to their side of the city.

“You get Mad March everywhere else,” said immediate past president of the West End Traders’ Association Andrew Wallace.

“Wouldn’t it be better if we had more of an even distribution of the larger fringe sites so we can actually encourage more of the foot traffic back to this part of the city?

“(The Fringe Festival) draws a large number of people straight past your front door … so there must be some way of encouraging some of those in.”

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