NYE ticket prices up 30% as North Sydney Council tries to trim $830,000 loss

A North Sydney Council policy to charge New Year’s Eve revellers for access to premium foreshore locations may have earned it hundreds of thousands of dollars, but it is still taking a financial bath due to the cost of hosting the event and cleaning up the mess left behind. 

And those losses show no sign of abating, leaving ratepayers millions of dollars out of pocket.

What happened: In an attempt to stem the accumulating losses, the council voted last year to introduce a $50 fee for access to Blues Point and Henry Lawson Reserve. 

It sold all 8,800 tickets, raising about $440,000 in gross revenue. But that hardly put a dent in council’s overall New Year’s Eve budget of about $1.3 million — for toilets, first aid, crowd management, enforcement of zero-alcohol policies and cleaning — leaving a shortfall of $830,000. 

On Monday night, council voted to expand this ticketing program, bumping up the price on tickets by 30 percent to $65 and introducing Bradfield Park as an additional pay-for-entry area. 

Wait, there’s more: Councillors also endorsed major changes for the management of Cremorne Point, one of the North Shore’s busiest locations on New Year's Eve, where entry is free. 

A report into the 2025 event found the area had a peak attendance of 11,000 and said  “multiple intoxication-related cases, and high-risk behaviours (such as access to cliff-edge areas) were observed throughout the evening”. 

The report recommended more fencing, road closures and toilets. It also proposed council wind back its zero-alcohol policy at the site — claiming it was very difficult to enforce — and instead implement a “controlled BYO policy”.

Crunching the numbers: It’s unclear to what extent losses for the 2026 NYE events will be greater, lesser or about the same as in 2025.

The higher ticket prices and expanded viewing areas mean council’s revenue could rise from about $440,000 to about $800,000.

But the overall outlay for putting on NYE events would increase.

After factoring in extra costs for running the Cremorne Point event ($174,000) and ticketing for the Bradfield Park site ($84,000), the revenue would drop to about $540,000. 

There are known unknowns, however, and North Sydney Council adjusts its NYE budget closer to the event. 

It will only become clear in the new year, when the final Bundy bottle has been taken away, and the fireworks are a distant memory, just how much red ink was spilled.

COST TO NORTH SYDNEY COUNCIL FOR NYE

2012 - $224,000 

2018 - $405,000 

2023 - $714,310

2024 - $1,086,000

2025 - $1,270,000

2026 - $1,528,000+ (additional expenses to be budgeted closer to date)