'It flies in the face of any kind of rationality': Canberra International Music Festival organisers say seating restrictions are unfair

The director of the Canberra International Music Festival has seen full pubs and restaurants, been to full cinemas, and heard about sporting events at which 20,000 people were in attendance.

And yet, he said, when it comes to the much-loved yearly music festival, he and his management team have found it almost impossible to reach an agreement over seating arrangements, due to the changing advice and varying venue sizes.

Venues with tiered, fixed and forward-facing seating are now able to operate at 100 per cent capacity, while gatherings that don't have tiered or fixed seating must adhere to the rule of one person per two metres of usable space.

Gatherings of over 1000 people can apply for an exemption from ACT Health.

But the 10-day music festival, back after being cancelled last year, is held in various venues across Canberra, and uses many smaller spaces without tiered seating.

Several of the venues, including the Fitters' Workshop in Kingston and the Australian National Botanic Gardens, have audience restrictions that, Peelman said, don't seem to apply anywhere else when it comes to entertainment.

"The frustration is really, you know, just walking around town," he said.

"When I'm in Canberra, I eat out most of the time, basically. I walk into a pub ... people walk in, groups of 20, 30, 40, sitting around the table, chatting, carousing, drinking, whatever, like people normally do.

"And then we are trying to organise events and concerts and people have to stay away from each other."

Peelman said these rules were unfair given the nature of a musical concert, in which patrons generally sit facing a single direction without eating or drinking, and don't interact with each other throughout the performance.

He said it was frustrating that different standards were applied to cinemas and sporting events.

"For all our events, of course we have to be super careful, because we might all be super-spreaders, all of a sudden while listening to music," he said.

"The total hypocrisy of this, you know, I've just had such a gutfull of it, because it makes no sense.

"It flies in the face of any kind of rationality."

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A spokeswoman for ACT Health said the latest changes to the "COVID-normal" public health measures were to ensure that people remained seated for the majority of their time at the venue.

"Tiered and front-facing seating reduces the risk of droplet transmission by ensuring respiratory distance for the period of the performance," the statement said.

"Fixed seating means that chairs cannot be moved closer to each other or to be face-to-face."

The spokeswoman also reiterated that the restrictions were in line with the majority of other jurisdictions, including NSW.

But the festivals' general manager, Angela Hannan, said even with the looser restrictions in recent weeks, the entertainment sector was not a level playing field.

"You should have the same set of rules apply to every venue, because we know full well that [in many places] people aren't 1.5 metres apart," she said.

"It's so labour-intensive and resource-intensive for a small organisation like us to put in place and monitor these regulations.

"The number of COVID plans I've written for this festival could fill a book."

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