City outlines public safety plans for bustling spring festival season

With downtown Austin set to host five major events in a six-week period beginning with South by Southwest, city leaders have presented their plans for road closures and increased public safety measures that are likely to disrupt normal activities in the city core.

Among the most noteworthy changes to the normal flurry of activity: new road closures on the northern section of Red River Street near Waterloo Park, a portion of West Fourth Street, and intermittent closures of Riverside Drive. And in a change from years of parties and brand activations in one of the city’s newest nightlife areas, festival activity has been curtailed in the Rainey Street district to accommodate its increasing residential makeup.

At a Downtown Austin Alliance forum held last week, leaders from SXSW and several city departments detailed what’s in store for spring festival season, which kicks off with SXSW and also includes the Texas Relays, Urban Cultural Fest, Moontower Comedy Festival, and the CMT Music Awards, which will take place at the Moody Center in the event’s first time outside of Nashville.

Christian Mella, director of governmental affairs for SXSW, detailed the many partial or total road closures scheduled throughout downtown, such as the new closure of Old Red River Street from March 14 to 19 to accommodate concerts at the Moody Amphitheater.

Mella said the reduction in events along Rainey Street will leave much of the surrounding streets open, though Rainey Street will still be closed from 2:30 p.m. to 3 a.m. all 10 days of SXSW.

“It is the first time in quite some time that APD has decided to close very little of the Rainey District. In years past, Red River, Driskill, Davis and the north end of Rainey would be closed for safety reasons, but now there are so many residents in the district that the city has only decided to close Rainey from Davis down to River Street so all of the residents can get to their homes.”

John Badcock, senior manager of event operations and safety for SXSW, said the festival has spent the entire year working with the Austin Police Department and other public safety agencies to develop safety and security plans. He said visitors should plan ahead to see what security steps will be in place at the clubs or events they plan to attend.

“Once again there will be different policies for different events depending on the nature of the event, where it is and what type of event it is. We advise you to check with the venue about their specific security, because in some places that’s as simple as a bag check, while in other places it’s more rigorous.”

While the local event and hospitality industry has rebounded from the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic that canceled the 2020 edition of SXSW, the party and activation scene is still coming back slowly. Bill Manno, director of the Austin Center for Events, said in 2019 there were more than 200 special events during the nine-week festival season. By comparison, at the beginning of this week ACE staff said there were 117 applications submitted for the equivalent time period.

Concerning police presence during SXSW, APD Lt. Christopher Juusola detailed new steps such as the concentrated police, fire and emergency services hub that will be located at Sixth and Neches streets to allow for easy treatment of injuries and processing arrests.

Discussing the many road closures throughout the six-week period – including portions of Congress Avenue near the state Capitol in late March to accommodate concerts tied to the music awards – Juusola advised businesses and property owners to be proactive and flexible, as there were nearly 300,000 visitors to the area over the same time period in 2022.

“We know where all of our authorized South by Southwest activations are going to be and this year we did notice a lot of movement onto Red River Street, so there’s going to be a lot more congestion on Red River and East Sixth Street because of that,” he said. “If you’re having employees or residents or guests trying to access your buildings that day, make sure they know to take Fifth Street or 10th Street. Everything in between those moving east to west is going to be pretty difficult to get across.”

View the complete presentation detailing road closure schedules and more here.

Photo made available through a Creative Commons license.

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