Noise complaints halt outdoor music events at Tanjong Pagar Distripark, organisers rue loss of venue

SINGAPORE: Former industrial hub turned vibrant arts cluster Tanjong Pagar Distripark has paused outdoor music events due to noise complaints from its neighbours.Independent music collective Cream Team, which has held its long-running Ice Cream Sundays event at the Keppel Road venue since 2023, said it was informed on Oct 16 that it cannot continue due to tighter restrictions.Co-founder Jake Camacho told CNA on Friday (Oct 30) they were notified by the venue management via an email stating: "We will not be able to freely allow outdoor music-related events at Tanjong Pagar Distripark without tighter restrictions."Ice Cream Sundays is a dance music event. Despite its name, it regularly takes place on other days of the week too. No specific details of the restrictions were given, Mr Camacho said, but the group was told that “events in the form that we were doing them would not be possible for the foreseeable future”.Tanjong Pagar Distripark, which is owned by Mapletree, also houses the Singapore Art Museum.CNA contacted Mapletree for comment on the matter on Friday afternoon. Later in the day, it posted on its Instagram page: "We love bringing people together through our live outdoor events, but we also understand that the loud music may sometimes cause some disamenity to our neighbours and the surrounding community."It said it takes the concerns seriously and has shared the feedback with the relevant event organisers, though it did not specify any names."As we want to be considerate of everyone around us, we will be asking our licensees and tenants to take a step back and temporarily pause any events that might result in disamenity to our neighbours," it said.Mapletree did not say how long the pause would last, adding only that it looks forward to “sharing more good times with you in the future”.NOISE COMPLAINTSMr Camacho said his firm started holding its Ice Cream Sundays events at Tanjong Pagar Distripark in 2023 – an important venue for its accessibility and capacity."Our events can range between 1,000 to 1,200 attendees, so the car park spine that's in between Blocks 37 and 39 is quite a suitable size for an event of that scale," he said.The first complaint that Ice Cream Sundays received was in August this year, when an anonymous email regarding noise complaints was sent to the group and some government agencies, said Mr Camacho."They were also citing other events that have happened at the Distripark, so other promoters and kinds of tenants were also tagged in the email thread," he said.Mr Camacho noted that its Oct 3 event, which was the final event before the pause notice came from the venue owners, was held behind Block 37 as an additional barrier between the event and the housing blocks across the road."We actually were agreeable to the measure of moving the whole thing to the back of the carpark around three weeks before the event, because we take it seriously when people say that we are causing a disturbance," he said."That's never our intention. We have always put in place measures to alleviate, as much as possible, any kind of concerns around noise and disturbance to nearby residences, and so that was something that we voluntarily agreed to."Ice Cream Sundays has also changed its speaker configuration to reduce the amount of noise facing the residences. During its events, the group also takes decibel readings every two hours to track its noise emissions.FINDING VENUESIce Cream Sunday posted about the pause on Instagram on Oct 28. The post had drawn more than 7,000 likes and almost 300 comments as at Monday (Nov 2).Mr Camacho called the news “very disappointing”, particularly as venues have become scarcer. Haw Par Villa, another of the group’s signature venues, became unavailable after redevelopment began in December last year."That’s a pattern that we've seen playing out over the past 10 years. And if anything, it seems to be getting even harder," he said.Losing an important venue like Distripark would be a "particularly hard blow to swallow", he added.As a company that specialises in outdoor music events of a certain scale, the challenge is in finding a venue that is accessible enough for people to attend, while also being in an area where they are not likely to disturb people, said Mr Camacho.The Cream Team has been reaching out to developers and government agencies for possible sites for its events, he added.In the meantime, the group has been making its events more family-friendly, with free activities such as stamp making and rock painting workshops."So it's not just a purely music-driven experience. We do like to think of it as more of a mini festival in a way, and that it should be inclusive to all kinds of people," said Mr Camacho.Other independent music organisers echoed the concerns. Culture SG co-founder Vira Suria said the Tanjong Pagar Distripark's spacious warehouse environment and proximity to the city centre made it suitable for such events.His group had previously organised R&B-themed event SoulSet at the location in June this year.However, finding similar venues at affordable rates is difficult, said Mr Vira."Spaces like this are hard to come by in Singapore, especially at a price that makes sense for independent organisers," he said."You might have plenty of ideas, but once you look at the venue costs, you have to ask whether you can realistically cover them."Mr Vira added that the restrictions imposed at Tanjong Pagar Distripark would pose another challenge for the independent music scene."For independent organisers, there’s always a level of uncertainty, and losing an option like this makes things harder," he said.