Severe weather in Sydney on Sunday forced the event organisers of Good Life Festival to suspend the festival. Here is the official statement. 

Good Life promoters Future Music and Frontier Touring would like to thank and commend Sydney ticketholders, as well as NSW Police, State Transit Authority, Traffic Management Centre, Australian Turf Club officials, NSW Ambulance and Event Aid Medical Staff for their efforts to safely close the Good Life Music Festival yesterday, after severe storms and damaging winds hit Sydney.

Good Life has run for four years now at Randwick Racecourse, and is highly regarded as a safe and well-managed event for teenagers. It's the biggest youth-based festival in the country.

Before the late afternoon storm rolled across the event site, a sold-out crowd of 20,000 teenagers were in the midst of enjoying a day packed with big International artists and celebrities, and enjoyed sets by Avicii, Afrojack, Martin Garrix, Blasterjaxx, Carnage, Havana Brown, Uberjakd, TV star Charlotte Crosby (Jordie Shore) and more. They also experienced a wide range of amusements including The Foamarama, Chill Out Cinema, 3 waterslides, 5 Carnival Rides and sporting activities including Gridiron, Soccer, Basketball, and Rockclimbing.

The health and safety of both our patrons and our staff is of paramount importance to festival organisers. Unfortunately, at 4pm severe thunderstorms and damaging wind conditions of up to 91 km per hour developed - and the decision was made on the advice of Operation Commander Superintendent Gavin Dengate of NSW Police to suspend the festival to ensure the safety of patrons. All patrons were urged to seek shelter in the Randwick Racecourse grandstand until the storm passed. At 4.30pm a further decision was made to close the event based on damage sustained to staging and equipment, and the forecast of further severe thunderstorms and winds of up to 100km/per hour.

Dedicated event buses were brought forward to provide transport to both the Moore Park parent pick-up zone and Central Station, for connection to the public transport network. Updates were made available on the Good Life Festival and NSW Police Facebook pages to keep parents and punters informed.

"The youths were very well behaved and having a great time at the concert before the inclement weather started," Commander Superintendent Gavin Dengate said. "We commend them on complying with our instructions. Our close working relationship with event organisers resulted in no injuries as a result of the storms and evacuations. Unfortunately, Mother Nature threw us a curve ball with this event, but it's great to work with dedicated professionals where our main priority is the safety of revellers."

Good Life works very closely with all stakeholders to plan the event each year. In 2015, that planning comprised:

- An Event Operations Centre (EOC) comprising an emergency management team of 20 management personnel.

- 100+ NSW Police plus additional resources called in to assist with closure.

- 250 security personnel

- 1 x NSW Ambulance with commander and crew

- Event Aid Medical team providing 2 x First aid Posts, 12 First Aid responders, 1 Doctor, 3 nurses, 4 x management staff, 2 x communications officers, bicycle paramedics and councillors.

- 30 x Red Frogs crowd care service staff and volunteers

LOCKER & CLOAKROOM ENQUIRIES:

Ninety percent of items have now been returned to festival patrons. Promoters and Police directed festivalgoers to gather and wait in the grandstand, until the site was cleared and it was safe to return to collect items. All leftover items have now been taken to the Australian Turf Club reception - located at Randwick Racecourse, Alison Road, Randwick. Items are available for collection during work hours from today: phone 1300 729 668 for more information.

TICKETING:

We are very disappointed that Good Life was closed before its scheduled finishing time due to extreme weather circumstances. Good Life provided a program of activities and entertainment prior to the closure (including performances by the majority of the headline artists), along with free public transport to and from the event, a dedicated pick-up and drop off zone at Moore Park and significant resources and infrastructure to ensure the safety and well-being of all ticket holders. Despite our best efforts Mother Nature presented unexpected challenges. Given what was provided both pre, during and post the event we cannot issue any refunds, but we do however know that our ticket holders are of upmost importance to us. We are working on a special offer to upcoming events for Sydney Good Life 2015 ticket holders.