Commercial activity in a park
Brisbane City Council supports a range of commercial activities in parks to activate our city. Commercial activities in parks contribute to the city’s quality of life and community participation to achieve our vision for an active, healthy and vibrant, creative city.
A park activity is commercial if it involves the exchange of goods or services for a fee or other consideration, or is undertaken for the purposes of advertisement, promotion or furtherance of business.
Some common commercial activities in parks include:
- busking
- coffee and food venders
- dog obedience training
- events with goods and services for sale, such as markets, fetes and fairs
- filming and photography for commercial purposes, including student activities
- fundraising or promotional activities or events
- fun runs, cross country, orienteering and other sport, recreation and leisure activities and events for paying participants
- personal training and other health, well-being and life skills classes
- recreation equipment hire, lessons and tours
- ticketed events, such as concerts, festivals and outdoor movies.
When you need consent
Consent from Council is required to operate a commercial activity in a Council park, even if it is being conducted by a community or not-for-profit organisation for fundraising purposes. Under the Public Land and Council Assets Local Law 2014, Council regulates commercial activities to optimise the benefit to residents and visitors and to safeguard public health, safety and amenity of patrons and the community on public land.
Personal trainers and other commercial health, well-being and life skills operators in Council parks require consent to conduct activities.
It is important your business or organisation has a park use consent and any other required permits to operate lawfully. If you operate a commercial activity in a Council park without Council consent, enforcement action may be taken.
Council requires that commercial activities in parks:
- must enhance or support a visitor’s use or experience of the park; and
- must depend on or be greatly enhanced by being conducted in a park setting; and
- must complement or significantly differ from an existing activity or service in or near the park
- should be consistent with the intended function and level of use of the park; and
- should represent sustainable use of the park and enhance existing park values; and
- should contribute to the quality of life offered by the city and increase prosperity through stimulating the local economy; and
- should encourage community participation and involvement and foster a community spirit.
Exemptions
Consent from Council is not required in the following circumstances:
- private parties or picnics in parks involving a commercial operator, such as a picnic provider, caterer, magician, clown, face painter, etc, where the commercial operator serves the private activity only and no other consent criteria are met;
- dog walkers using paths or dog parks;
- carers, kindy and childcare providers, schools, and after school hours/ vacation care providers using playgrounds or other park areas for small groups of children on an informal/ irregular basis (note: regular use and groups of more than 30 do require consent);
- recreation tours for small groups of paying participants that pass through one or more parks and don’t occupy a specific park site for any length of time, such as bicycle tours (note: groups of more than 30 do require consent).
Fees
No fee is payable at the time of application.
Completed applications will be assessed by Council, and if approved, an invoice will be issued for the relevant fees.
How to apply
You should make your application at least 10 working days before your activity or event. This allows time for processing and for Council to discuss any changes to your application.
Complete and submit the commercial activity in a park online application. As part of your application you will need to upload a marked up map or aerial photo showing the park area you wish to use. You can use Council’s interactive mapping or other online mapping tools to create your map, or mark-up a hard copy map by hand.
You will also need to upload a Certificate of Currency for public liability insurance to the value of $20 million (minimum).
All attachments must be a Word, PDF or JPG file.
Your application will be acknowledged within two working days of Council receiving your application. The application may take up to 10 working days to be processed.
Other approvals
You may need to consider other approvals for your activity or event.
More information
Read our guidelines for using Council parks.
To find out more information about commercial activities in park or to check your requirements, email 133BNE@brisbane.qld.gov.au or phone Council's Business Hotline on 133 BNE (133 263).