Police are on the hunt for one or more A-grade douchebags who made off with $7K worth of speakers from Wollongong’s Yours & Owls festival this weekend.
The gear had been rigged at the Panoptes Palace stage, an immersive art party decked out to look like a Panopticon-style prison that was kept pumping with bangers all weekend long by local DJs including Jake Walker, Jon Watts, Kato, Paul Jextra, Somersault, Jerome V and more.
One of the stage’s curators says the whole thing “absolutely went off” and it was nothing but positive vibes until after the fezzie drew to a close.
“We took half the sound system to store overnight in Church St, Wollongong, and some scum bucket has broken in and stolen the gear,” the curator tells Music Feeds.
“A witness form the apartment complex said they saw a man loading the speakers into a blueish BMW at around 1am this morning [Wednesday, 5th October]. We have CCTV from the apartment, and the festival site to identify the vehicle and thief; a police report has been made. We need the speakers back ASAP to run another event soon, so may drop charges if they are returned promptly.”
The inventory of pilfered gear includes:
– 1 x Qsc brand K12 12” 1000 watt two-way powered portable speakers (image here)
– 2 x Qsc brand KW153 1000 watt three-way powered PA speakers (image here)
– Various AV cables
The Panoptes Palace crew have asked anyone who might have information – or anyone who might happen to spy the above gear for sale anywhere (particularly if the serial numbers have been scratched off) – to contact the Panoptes Palace Facebook page with the seller’s details.
They’ve even put a reward on offer: 4 free festival tickets for next year’s Yours and Owls for anyone with info that leads to the return of the speakers.
“It’s just a really crap way to end a great festival, and a bit of a shock in the morning when you wake up and all your gear has been flogged,” the curator says.
Fingers crossed they manage to track down the flogs responsible.
If you want to help out, you can get a better look at the speakers by visiting the Panoptes Palace Facebook group and checking out some of the 360 photos of the stage installation.
In the meantime, I guess there’s one bit of good news to come from this whole shitty situation: from the sounds of the reward on offer, Yours & Owls has already been locked in to return in 2017.
