Event noise

The public has a right to peace and quiet. Noise disturbs sleep and can harm health. Noise denies people the full use of their home, business, or favorite part of the outdoors. To protect the public, Seattle’s noise ordinance has long been one of the strongest in the country.

But Seattle’s administration of its noise ordinance is diffuse and weak. No only should it be better heeded, but the noise ordinance also needs to be updated to better regulate the frequencies of noise, not just its loudness. The science of noise, which was in its infancy when the ordinance was written, nowsuggests that levels that do not exceed the volume limits of the noise ordinance can at certain frequencies cause physical and mental harm, or at the least be seriously disturbing to many people; and even more to birds and other animals.

Major sources of noise in Eastlake include the freeway, seaplanes, construction, and activities at Gas Works Park. The present section addresses noise from concerts and from drumming, in both cases mainly from Gas Works Park. Noise from the freeway is discussed on the Freeway Noise page in the Transportation section of this web site. Seaplane noise and other impacts are discussed on the Seaplanes page of the Parks and Lake Union section of this web site. Construction noise is discussed on the Construction Impacts page.

Where to make a public comment. The section immediately below discusses the long, very loud concerts that the City has begun permitting at Gas Works Park. Whatever your views about the noise from these concerts, you can make a difference by commenting to City officials via e-mail, voice mail, or U.S. mail, with a copy also to info@eastlakeinfo.net. Part of the problem is that so many different agencies bear part of the responsibility, so try to contact as many of these as possible.

Seattle Special Events Committee, part of the City’s Office of Economic Development, Seattle’s (It issues special events permits without sufficient conditions (such as less noise and more outreach; doesn’t enforce the permit conditions there are) specialeventsoffice@seattle.gov; 206-883-6110; PO Box 94708, Seattle, WA, 98124-4708.
Seattle Dept. of Parks and Recreation (freely issues permits in parks for concerts with extreme noise, without sufficient conditions or enforcement): parkusepermits@seattle.gov; 206-684-4080 ext 3; 300 Elliott Ave W., Suite 100 Seattle, WA 98119
Seattle Department of Neighborhoods (has been weak in recommending and monitoring the outreach required of event permit applicants) Sonny.Nguyen@seattle.gov (206) 445-9895, PO Box 94649, Seattle, WA, 98124-4649
Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections (weakens the noise ordinance with lax rules for and enforcement of noise variances and by freely issuing them) nathan.torgelson@seattle.gov (206) 684-0343, P.O. Box 34019, Seattle, WA, 98124-4019
Seattle Police Department’ Concerns about illegally high sound levels from conerts in parks can be reported to SPD’s non-emergency phone number, 206-625-5011, ext. 6.
Seattle Customer Service Bureau Answers the citywide information line (311 206-684-CITY, or 206-386-1234) for the public to file complaints or get advice on which agencies to contact about a concern such as noise.
Find it, Fix it app (available for for any smart phone). Briefly describe the noise and your locatoin Best if you can include a noise recording, written record or photo of a high noise measurement (need to list Gas Work Park’s address: 2101 N. Northlake Way, Seattle 98104).
City Council (needs to strengthen the noise ordinance and how it is enforced), council@seattle.gov (goes to all 9 Councilmembers) 206-684-8888, PO Box 34025, Seattle, WA, 98124-4025. Two (Tanya Woo and Council President Sara Nelson) are at-large, representing all of Seattle. The following represent districts which abut Lake Union: Joy Hollingsworth (District 3, includes Eastlake and Capitol Hill) joy.hollingsworth@seattle.gov, 206-684-8803; Maritza Rivera (District 4, includes Wallingford and U Dsitrict), maritza.rivera@seattle.gov (206 )684-8804; Dan Strauss (District 6, includes Fremont) dan.strauss@seattlegov 206-684-8806; and RobertKettle (District 7, includes Queen Anne and South Lake Union) robert.kettle@seattle.gov (206 684-8807. Note: the Council committee that oversees the City’s parks is composed of Kettle, Rivera, Strauss, Nelson (vice chair) and Hollingsworth (chair).

Gas Works Park as park vs. as a concert venue

Opened in 1975 on the site of an old industrial complex that once made gas out of coal, Gas Works Park is an internationally known and award-winning iconic design by the late, great landscape architect Richard Haag. In 1999 the City Council designated it as a Seattle Landmark, and in 2013 the National Park Service included it in the National Register of Historic Places.

As the heritage of a thousand-foot thick sheet of ice that once covered the area and scraped it out as a lake, Lake Union, and Gas Works Park within it, is the center of a natural amphitheater surrounded by densely settled parts of Seattle that rise above it on all sides. As many as 50,000 people live within direct earshot of the concerts at Gas Works Park. Many tens of thousands of others work in that same vicinity, as do further tens of thousands who visit the Lake Union area for business or leisure, not mention those who navigate upon it.

As Seattle’s Special Event Office has acknowledged: “While events in all Seattle neighborhoods will benefit from this additional critical review, Gas Works Park is unique in that it is located between a lake surrounded by tens of thousands of residents to the south, and at the base of a hill with tens of thousands more residents, combining to create magnification of any amplified sound in the park.” [From a longer passage which is quoted and linked further below.]

Indeed, the location Gas Works Parks on a peninsula in Lake Union ensures that event noise is broadcast easily across water in all directions, including low-frequency noise which loses little volume over distance and easily goes around barriers. Lake Union is densely settled on all sides, with the result that tens of thousands of people are subjected to noise from concerts at Gas Works Park. Such a location is a uniquely inappropriate for noisy public events.

A citywide controversy in 2007 caused the Mayor and Parks Department to reverse a decision for a series of amplified concerts at high ticket prices to be held at Gas Works Park. More about that episode below–but despite it, in the past year Seattle’s Department of Parks and Recreation and the Special Events Office of Washington’s Department of Economic Development conspired successfully to bring even larger and noisier concerts to Gas Works Park, and without meaningful prior notice to the affected neighborhoods.

Neighborhoods around Lake Union are inherently in close earshot of amplified sound generated by concerts at Gasworks Park. Because such noise is transmitted especially well over water. As explained below, low frequency noise transmits especially well because it declines much less over distance, and easily goes around obstacles.

The most noise from Gas Works Park concerts is in the summer, just when people in Lake Union area neighborhoods want their windows and doors to be open. Even in other seasons, noise from Gas Works Park (such as drumming; see below) can be equally disturbing to many people around Lake Union.

Highly amplified music of any kind has long been recognized as a bad idea for Gas Works Park. The drawbacks have become worse as sophisticated new amplification technology (such as more powerful rotary woofers and subwoofers, and improved transmission lines) that produce not only higher volumes, but deep bass frequencies down to and below the limit of what a person can consciously hear. Noise frequencies below what can be consciously heard are called “infrasound.” and can have more serious impacts on physical and mental health than audible noise frequencies.

Low-frequency (deep bass) noise and infrasound carries the farthest of all noise, declines least with distance, and easily goes around barriers from the source onward as it penetrates a faraway neighborhood.

The science of human impacts from low frequency noise and infrasound is summarized in a 2020 study by the Audio Engineering Society. Ultra low frequencies (infrasound) which a person does not consciously perceive, can induce unease, anxiety, disorientation, depression, and nausea. These negative effects are felt even if the sound level outside the venue does not technically exceed current regulatory limits under the Seattle Noise Ordinance. The Noise Ordinance was written before invention of the technology that creates deep bass and infrasound.

Human impacts are not the only concern. Scientific research finds that animals, including fish but especially birds such as songbirds, shorebirds, and the osprey, peregrine falcons, and bald eagles that all enjoy habitat around Lake Union, experience noise differently and more intensively from how humans do. They can hear and be seriously traumatized by the infrasound which also affects humans although we cannot hear it.

The proposed concert series n 2007 was headed off by a lawsuit from Friends of Gas Works Park calling for the Park Department prepare under the Washington Environmental Policy Act an environmental analysis of the change. Then and now the Department is not interested in doing such an analysis, yet it seems all the more needed now that these concerts have far more powerful audio electronics that produce sound at so much higher volume and multiple frequencies; and now that scientists know so much more about the health damage that such extreme noise does to humans, birds, and other animals.

During the August 24, 2024 concert at Gas Works Park, a volunteer with EastlakeInfo.net recorded noise readings in the still-public parts of the park (that is, the parts not fenced off for the concert venue). Extremely high noise levels were found, including one just over 130 decibels. According to decibelpro.app 130 decibels is equivalent to any of the following: “a jet take-off; the loudest rock concert ever recorded; a gunshot at close range; [or] the sound made by a jackhammer.” Decibelpro.app further states: “130 decibels is considered the threshold of pain when it comes to our ears. What this means is that listening to sounds with an intensity of 130 dB is both painful and harmful to human hearing. 130-decibel sounds can cause instant hearing damage and noise-induced hearing loss.”

During this August 24 site visit, the volunteer also spoke with concert event staff at the gate where ticket holders were entering and leaving the concert. The employees said that they are required to wear ear protection at all times at a concert, and to offer ear plugs to ticket holders as they enter the venue. However when the volunteer asked for a copy of any written warning of the risk of damage to hearing from the high noise levels at the concert, the employees said that no such warning is provided to or seen by concert-goers. The volunteer also reports that on-line advertising by promoters of the August 24 concert does mention any such risk.

Concerts in which music is played at extremely high volumes should be held in an indoor arena or possibly an outdoor stadium — whatever venue will expose only paying customers to the noise. They certainly should not be allowed in a City park, especially one as often visited as Gas Works Park Hundreds, if not thousands of people who live or work nearby, or happen to be in the area, are exposed to this annoying and sometimes harmful noise without their consent or any prior warning.

Noise from concerts and other City-permitted events. While occasional concerts or music festivals took place at Gas Works Park in the years after its opening in 1975, the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation stopped scheduling concerts there in 2007 as a result of public opposition and a lawsuit by Friends of Gas Works Park. Between 2007 and 2023, the Department permitted only six concerts in Gas Works Park, two of which were organized by SeaFair in 2016 and 2017 on July 4, and one was organized by the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in 2017 to entertain participants in its Obliteride benefit event.

In 2023 without any real outreach having been done to the affected population, the Department of Parks and Recreation permitted its first-ever concert at Gas Works Park featuring music that was highly amplified and included low frequency noise and infrasound; held on Sept. 9, the concert was six hours long. In 2024 the Department has permitted three such concerts at Gas Works Park: a nine-hour concert on July 28, a six-hour concert on August 24, and a four-hour concert on Sept. 14.

Each of these concerts fenced off fully half of Gas Works Park, excluding access by the public for up to four days each. Because the parking lot has no time limits and is first come, first served, the lot is mostly occupied free by the vehicles of concert staff and ticketed attendees, with few in the public able to park in the lot or nearby.

By permitting three such concerts in summer 2024, the Park Department caused much of Gas Works Park and its parking to be unavailable to the public for three Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays — weekends that are the most popular time to visit the park, and during the most popular season.

An estimated 50,000 people are living or working in, or visiting, the Lake Union area and within earshot at the time when these highly amplified music concerts are occurring in Gas Works Park. This population is exposed involuntarily and without prior notice to near-constant pounding, amplified deep bass and infrasound that some find deeply traumatic.

The troubled permitting process. Any large event in a park is required beforehand to obtain two City of Seattle permits: a park use permit from the Department of Parks and Recreation, and a special events permit from Seattle’s Special Events Office. In issuing and enforcing the special event permit and the park use permit for a concert at Gas Works Park, the respective agencies need to consider both noise volume and noise frequency. They must not hide behind the noise ordinance’s lax enforcement and its loopholes regarding noise frequencies.

Approval of these permits is not automatic. The Parks Department is not required to approve concert permits in any park. And if it chooses to issue a permit for a concert, the Department has sweeping powers (which it is not using) to limit the levels and frequencies of noise that is heard outside the venue. The Special Events Office, too, is not required to issue a special events permit, and if it does issue such a permit, it can impose many conditions on noise levels, including levels lower than already mandated by the City’s Noise Ordinance.

Seattle’s Department of Neighborhoods is also involved in the event permitting process. The Department’s role is to propose outreach requirements by which the applicant, well in advance, must inform the potentially affected public about the event proposal should the public want to comment to the City or to the applicant. For the large, loud, long concerts at issue here, the affected public simply had no reasonable way of knowing beforehand that the City was considering a permit.

The Department of Neighborhoods’ outreach recommendations also apply during the event so that those actually affected can provide comments that will help the City evaluate the permittee’s performance and the City’s own enforcement efforts. For democracy go work, those potentially affected need to know that a concert is imminent and that the City welcomes comments during or after the concert.

Judging from the inadequacy of outreach for all of the concerts that have been permitted at Gas Works Park, the Department of Neighborhoods’ efforts needs to find more meaningful outreach requirements to require of the applicants. Tens of thousands who live or work around the lake, or were otherwise likely to be within earshot of each concert, were never reached beforehand about notice and comment opportunities. And when the concerts occurred, very few knew a about them beforehand, that the City would welcome their comments, or how and where to send them.

The critique presented here may be making some headway in convincing the Special Events Office, Department of Parks and Recreation, and Department of Neighboroods to introduce some reforms which they acknowledge are especially needed regarding possible events at Gas Works Park. One wrote on September 13 to a volunteer at EastlakeInfo.net: “We have heard loud and clear that the outreach requirements for music events at Gas Works are inadequate and are dedicated to building a site-specific manual for Gas Works to include stronger recommendations around staging, noise level measurements, outreach, and more. SDCI, Parks, OED’s Special Events Office, and DON are committing to this effort with the support of SPD and SDOT and historical guidance from Seattle Center.”

There is nowhere to go but up, but inherent contradictions in the process will be difficult to overcome. Notably, the Office of Special Events is located within and reports to the director of Seattle’s Office of Economic Development, whose mission is “to help create healthy businesses, thriving neighborhoods, and community organizations to contribute to a robust economy that will benefit all Seattle residents and future generations.” That department’s notion of “health” seems to be more financial than about the health of our people, birds and other animals that share Seattle together. The statement of policy that opens Seattle’s noise ordinance expresses the balance as being “to control the level of noise in a manner which promotes commerce; the use, value and enjoyment of property; sleep and repose; and the quality of the environment.”

There is an inherent problem in the City’s reliance on the permit applicants and permit holders to produce balanced and effective outreach. The Special Events Office and the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation do no appreciable event outreach themselves, relying for this important function on the concert promoters. But the applicants have an obvious conflict of interest. Their interest is in getting a permit, minimizing its restrictions, and continuing such concerts into the future. The promoters have no interest in enabling potential opposition to their permit or restrictions on the kind of noise they find it profitable to make. The public will better trust the process if public notices inviting comment come from City agencies, not from the concert promoters.

The Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation seems to have somewhat the same disincentive as the concert promoters against reaching out to those potentially hurt by a proposed concert and making it possible for them to object or to request noise limitations; and for considering the physical and mental health consequences of concert noise. Why? Because a condition of each permit is that the Department receives directly into its unrestricted financial account 10 percent of the gross revenues (before expenses) brought in by the concert promoters. The Seattle Times reported that the Sept. 9, 2023 concert at Gas Works Park alone brought to the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation $128,000 in cash.

The long, highly amplified concerts being permitted at Gas Works Park are easily the most lucrative use of any Seattle park, both for the permittees and for the Park Department itself. Some concert planners rate the capacity of Gas Works Park at 3800 concert goers, although each Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation permit determines how many seats are allowed for a concert. The permit typically allows multiple tickets during the many hours of each concert to be sold to successive people for each seat, resulting in 10,000 or more paying customers per concert. The highest ticket prices are $150 or more, but this is not all the money made. The concert promoters (and thus the Park Department) also profit from the sale of food, beverages, and merchandise, and the rental of lockers.

The Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation, the Special Events Committee, the Department of Neighborhoods, and the concert promoters claim to take public comments seriously. These claims would be credible if the agencies required and the concert promoters undertook diligent, timely efforts to reach out to the affected populations before a permit is acted on, as well as during and after the event, so that the public knows that comments are welcomed by and will be considered by decision makers.

Obvious and needed forms of notification for the affected population that are currently neither required nor done should include posters on each block; delivery to the affected addresses of U.S. Postal Service mailings; door hangers or fliers; and announcements or ads in media outlets and on social media.

Reaching thousands of people with notice on how to comment before the issuance of a permit is needed so that City officials can benefit from the comments in deciding whether to issue the permit and if yes, what conditions to place on them. Notice on how to comment during and after a concert is needed so that City officials can benefit from the comment in considering whether to issue future permits and what conditions to place on them. Public comments could conceivably convince City officials to eliminate the concerts or reduce their number, and impose limits on the sound volume and the use of low frequencies and infrasound.

A jarring break from earlier history. Permitting of the unusually long and loud concerts recently at Gas Works Park is hard to square with the record of neighborhood concern over past Park Department consideration of concerts at Gas Works Park. Consider:

From 1991 to 2005, the Parks Department hosted a “Summer Nights” concert series downtown at its Piers 62 and 63. Because of concern about the piers’ stability, the series was moved for one year (2006) to Parks Department land at South Lake Union that was about to be redeveloped as Lake Union Park. In December 2006, the Park Department announced that for 2007 and thereafter the Summer Nights concert series would relocate to Gas Works Park. But it had failed to notify the population around Lake Union that could be affected by the concerts.

Friends of Gas Works Park, a nonprofit organization, sued the City, and the concert promoter, One Reel, withdrew its proposal for the concert series. No other concert promoter stepped forward, and the series was canceled. , and the concert series was . and under an to stop the concert series. and the promoters for inadequate environmental analysis. Nevertheless (click here), the City Council authorized the Summer Nights concert series to relocate to Gasworks Park for 2007-2009 and released $150,000 for electrical and other improvements needed for the concerts. However, the 2007 season was soon canceled and not revived for subsequent years at either Gas Works Park, Lake Union Park, or the downtown waterfront, although smaller free concerts have resumed at the latter venue.

Special Events Office is not honoring its 2013 commitment to prohibit off-hours amplified sound relating to sports runs, walks, and cycling events that begin or end at Gas Works Park. The Special Events Office seems to have forgotten its 2013 commitment to prohibit off-hours amplified sound relating to sports runs, walks, and cycling events that begin or end at Gas Works Park; and to closely restrict it at other times. At the time this was a welcome change in policy, when the Special Events permitting was more committed than today to public notice, comment and responsiveness. The correspondence can be found by clicking here. A Oct. 16, 2013 three-paragraph Special Event Office response is worth quoting at length:

“In order to mitigate these issues, the following proposals will be made to the Special Event Committee for approval and implementation by January 1, 2014 for all neighborhoods: (1) Require event organizers to prove need for off-hours amplified sound; (2) Require event organizers to provide specific information about what sound will be amplified, what equipment will be used, and schematics of the direction of the sound; (3) When Noise Variance permission is granted, require event organizers to include information on off-hours amplified sound in distributed notifications; (4) When Noise Variance permission is granted, require event organizers to hire DPD monitor staffing, at the organizer’s cost, to be on site from 60 minutes prior to permitted Noise Variance hours through the end of permitted Noise Variance hours; and (5) Require event organizers to assign on-site personnel with authority to control sound issues from 60 minutes prior to permitted hours and during all hours of the event, with public contact information.”

“While events in all Seattle neighborhoods will benefit from this additional critical review, Gas Works Park is unique in that it is located between a lake surrounded by tens of thousands of residents to the south, and at the base of a hill with tens of thousands more residents, combining to create magnification of any amplified sound in the park. Because of this, the following will be implemented immediately at Gas Works Park: (1) Suspend issuance of Noise Variance permits at Gas Works Park immediately through April 1, 2014; and (2) Suspend 2014 Noise Variance permissions for organizers who violated 2013 permissions.”

“The Special Event Office will take steps to more adequately inform ECC of upcoming events in the area, both with year-end event expectations and with notification for impactful individual events. Our office is also working with the Department of Neighborhoods to create more thorough event organizer notification requirements that will include direct outreach to both impacted neighbors and neighborhood/business organizations who represent them. This, along with other information like thorough Noise Variance parameters and instructions, will be available online.”

Seattle’s Special Events Office, Department of Parks and Recreation, and Department of Neighborhoods claim to want and heed public input about event noise, but any commitments apparently mean nothing when the promoters dangle large financial benefits for allowing events with extreme noise, including in the off hours.

What incentive does the public have in the future to petition the City for relief when past success in obtaining commitments from the City are now so easily ignored?

Drumming. The Seattle Noise Code (SMC sec. 25.08.500) prohibits “unreasonable noise which disturbs another” and the refusal or intentionally failure “to cease the unreasonable noise when ordered to do so by a police officer.” Included in this prohibition is “Loud or raucous, and frequent, repetitive, or continuous sounds created by use of a musical instrument, or other device capable of producing sound when struck by an object, a whistle, or a sound amplifier or other device capable of producing, amplifying, or reproducing sound.”

Drumming isn’t allowed in City parks without a permit, and no permits are being issued for drumming. Larger drums emit lower frequency sound, which by its nature carries farther (especially over water), with less decline over distance or from barriers that more greatly reduce sound as it reaches higher frequencies.

Illegal drumming in Gas Works Park has been increasing, and Eastlake suffers some of the worst effects. But Seattle’s Police Department and Dnear the top of this page for a list of agencies and their contact information.

Our hardworking Seattle police officers have the largest authority to act against illegal drumming, but they tend not to respond unless a lot of complaints come at once. Calling relatively quickly after the drumming starts will give an officer time to get out to the park to stop the drumming before it has gone on for hours and hours. So the minute you near the noise, please phone either 911 or the police non-emergency number at 206-625-5011 (press 6 to reach a live operator). e Be sure to mention the date and time of the noise. It’s better to give your name and contact information, but you can be anonymous. A noise complaint can also be registered on the City’s “Find it, Fix it” app which is available free for any smart phone. You will need to give the address of Gas Works Park, which is 2101 N. Northlake Way.

Although officers are sent in response to calls to the non-emergency number, the Seattle Police Department apparently does not total these calls or use them to proactively shape its enforcement priorities as it does for calls to 911. The accumulation of 911 calls enables SPD to act proactively on a problem, so do not hesitate to call 911 about unpermitted noise in a park or public space. You will not be diverting 911 resources from life-threatening emergencies; the operators know where to route noise complaints to get results.

Comments on any of the above, and any correspondence with City officials, are always welcome to us at info@eastlakeinfo.net.