Schoolies closing times to vary

Schoolies Festival organisers have quashed rumours of an early lock-out for teenagers in the schoolies-only hub on Surfers Paradise Beach this year.

Yesterday, the State Government said Brisbane media reports of a midnight curfew on organised nightly entertainment were wrong.

The fenced and patrolled Schoolies Hub has been a popular attraction for genuine schoolies, offering stage entertainment and movie screenings until 2am most nights during the week-long festival.

Schoolies must present identification to receive a wristband which allows access to the schoolies-only hub and prevents unwanted people including over-age 'toolies' and under age 'foolies' from crashing the party.

Department of Communities spokeswoman Liliana Montague said the hub would continue to operate until 2am on the busiest nights of the festival, but the closing time would vary on the quieter nights between Sunday and Thursday night.

"The hub will be open eight nights from Saturday (November) 21 to Saturday 28 to provide a safe entertainment zone for schoolies and to help the central Surfers Paradise community cope with the volume of people during the festival," she said.

"Each night the closing time will be determined by a full safety assessment which will take the advice of emergency services and volunteer groups including the Red Frogs into consideration."

Ms Montague denied there would be a 'Cinderella' curfew that would turf thousands of schoolies on to the streets each night and create potential policing nightmares.

"We're not going to suddenly switch all the lights on and push people out," she said.

"It will be gradual closure -- the music will wind down and then we will screen a sitcom and schoolies will gradually move off back to their apartments."

She said if there was a demand to close it early they would do so.

Published in Gold Coast News 9th November.

http://www.goldcoast.com.au/article/2009/11/09/156425_gold-coast-news.html