I’m so sorry to report this dear Sydneysiders, but if you’re going to one of the many concerts happening in the next week or so, your weekend transport is going to be absolutely fucked. Well, more than NSW transport already is at the moment.
Three huge concerts are going ahead in the coming days: Ed Sheeran will be playing at Accor Stadium on Friday and Saturday (February 24 and 25) which about 85,000 people will attend, while Harry Styles will be performing the following Friday and Saturday (March 3 and 4) with an approximate 70,000 people seeing him each night.
On the same night as Harry’s Saturday show, the Backstreet Boys (yes they are still performing) will be playing at the Qudos Bank Arena to almost 20,000 people and Taiwanese star Jay Chou will be performing at the Giants Stadium to around 24,000.
That means that on Saturday 4 March, close to 120,000 people will all be trekking to Sydney Olympic Park on the same fkn evening, despite it having a) one (1) train platform in that direction and b) requiring multiple train swaps to get to, depending on where you live.
Transport NSW Chief Operations Officer Howard Collins has also encouraged people to catch public transport and avoid driving, which will mean shit is going to be even more chaotic.
“We urge ticket holders to please consider all travel options and use public transport where possible, because heavy traffic is expected and parking is limited — so, leave the car at home,” he said, per 9News.
“Public transport is the best way to get to Sydney Olympic Park and is made even easier for ticket holders for the Sheeran and Styles concerts because the cost of travel on public transport is included in your ticket — just show your event ticket to transport staff when boarding services.”
He then said there’ll be “plenty of frequent trains” and “major event buses” running to and from Sydney Olympic Park to transport people, which is reassuring given normally the trains come infrequently, are derailed by a single drop of rain, and require 11 changes before you can get to your destination.
Okay, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but I’ve been fucked over too many times by random Sydney train cancellations to not remain cynical. It happens weekly at this point.
I had a squiz on transportnsw.info‘s trip planner to check if there will be a direct train to Sydney Olympic Park from Central Station (rather than requiring us to swap at Lidcombe as per usual) and it looks like there will be! Thank God. It also appears trains from Central to Sydney Olympic Park should be coming roughly every 10 minutes too, maybe more frequent in peak time, which we love to see.
Either way, make sure you leave PLENTY of time to travel to and from your concerts because there could still be delays. Expect to line up when going home as well, because we all know how chaotic the station gets every time a concert is on, let alone when there’s three. RIP to the Macca’s line.
Stay safe and hydrated!!!
