Event noise

The public has a right to peace and quiet. Noise disturbs sleep, harms health, and 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. Not only should it be better heeded, but the noise ordinance also needs to be updated to regulate the frequencies of noise, not just its loudness. The science of noise, which was in its infancy when the ordinance was written, now recognizes levels as damgting that do not exceed the volume limits of the noise ordinance such as, at certain frequencies, the cause of physical and mental harm to people and the animal kingdom.

Major sources of noise in Eastlake include the freeway, seaplanes, construction, and activities at Gas Works Park. The present section addresses noise from concerts at Gas Works Park that since 2023 have begun to generate extremely loud sound that includes some very low frequencies. 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 (often including disturbing low frequencies) that the City began in 2023 to permit 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 many different agencies bear part of the responsibility, so please contact as many of these as possible.

Seattle Special Events Office, part of the City’s Office of Economic Development. In cooperation with a Special Events Committee which it administers, this office issues special events permits which includes various conditions (such as for prior outreach to the public, and for noise control during an event. Unfortunately, many of these conditions are weak, plus the Special Events Office does not adequately7 enforce them nor does it ensure that other agencies do so. But the process will not improve unless members of the public register their concerns about specific events, as specifically as possible. Contact: specialeventsoffice@seattle.gov; 206-883-6110; PO Box 94708, Seattle, WA, 98124-4708.
Seattle Dept. of Parks and Recreation Music concerts and festivals in City parks not only obtain a special events permit from the Special Events Office; they also obtain from the Parks and Recreation Department a parks use permit. As with the special events permit, the parks use permit has various conditions which unfortunately are weak, and are only haphazardly enforced. As above, the process will not improve unless members of the public register their concerns about specific events, as specifically as possible. Contact: parkusepermits@seattle.gov; 206-684-4080 ext 3; 300 Elliott Ave W., Suite 100 Seattle, WA 98119.
Seattle Department of Neighborhoods advises permit applicants and the Special Events Office and the Parks and Recreation Department regarding outreach to the public which should be undertaken. Unfortunately, the Department of Neighborhoods has no authority to require such outreach, and does little or no monitoring to ensure that each permittee actually does whatever outreach the Special Events Office and the Parks and Recreation Department may choose to require. As above, the process will not improve unless members of the public register their concerns about specific events, as specifically as possible. Contact: Jenifer Chao, DON Director, seattleneighborhoods@seattle.gov; (206) 684-0464; in-person 600 4th Avenue (City Hall), 4th Floor, Seattle, WA 98104. Mailing Address: PO Box 94649, Seattle, WA, 98124-4649.
Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections (with no apparent substantive review or any consideration of the harm done to those within earshot, this department’s director routine issues noise variances which allow the concert and music festival permittees to vastly exceed the limits otherwise imposed by Seattle’s noise ordinance. Contact: Nathan Torgelson, SDCI Director, nathan.torgelson@seattle.gov; (206) 684-0343; P.O. Box 34019, Seattle, WA, 98124-4019.
Seattle Police Department’ Concerns about illegally high sound levels emanating from parks (including from concerts) can be reported to SPD’s non-emergency phone number, 206-625-5011, ext. 6.
Seattle Customer Service Bureau This office, which like DON is located in City Hall, answers the citywide information line which any member of the public can reach by dialing either 311, 206-684-CITY, or 206-386-1234. The Customer Service Bureau can field your complaints and concerns, and can also respond to your questions with its 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 location. 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 as 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 (Alexis Mercedes, alexismercedes.rinck@seattle.gov; and Council President Sara Nelson, sara.nelson@seattle.gov) 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 District), maritza.rivera@seattle.gov (206 )684-8804; Dan Strauss (District 6, includes Fremont) dan.strauss@seattlegov 206-684-8806; and Robert Kettle (District 7, includes Queen Anne and South Lake Union) robert.kettle@seattle.gov (206 684-8807. 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 has an internationally influential and award-winning iconic design by the late, great landscape architect Richard Haag. It is a designated Seattle Landmark, a registered WA state Historic Place, is on the National Register of Historic Places, and is a National Historic Landmark.

As the heritage of the 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 to mention those who navigate upon it or fly above it.

As Seattle’s Special Events 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 its 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 2005-2006 caused the Mayor and Parks Department to reverse a decision for a series of amplified concerts at high ticket prices that were to be held at Gas Works Park. More about that episode below–but despite it, beginning in 2024 Seattle’s Department of Parks and Recreation and the Special Events Office of Washington’s Department of Economic Development have worked quietly to bring even larger and noisier concerts to Gas Works Park, and no meaningful prior notice to the affected neighborhoods.

The most noise from Gas Works Park concerts is in the summer, just when people in the 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 also be 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 are now worse as sophisticated new amplification technology (such as more powerful rotary woofers and subwoofers, and improved transmission lines) 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 do 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 to neighborhoods more than a mile away.

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 needs to be revised to address deep bass and infrasound, as it was written before they were a common form of amplified sound in such genres as “house music” and electronic dance music (EDM).

Human impacts are not the only concern. Scientific research finds that animals, including fish and especially birds such as songbirds, shorebirds, 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 hear it as a sound.

The proposed concert series in 2007 was headed off by a lawsuit from Friends of Gas Works Park calling for the Park Department to prepare under the Washington Environmental Policy Act an environmental analysis of the change. Now as it did then, the Park Department resists doing such an analysis, which nevertheless seems all the more needed now that these concerts have more powerful audio electronics that produce sound at higher volume and multiple frequencies; and now that scientists know 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 may have sustained hearing damage while recording noise readings in the still-public parts of the park (that is, the parts not fenced off for the concert venue). Extremely high noise level readings were found, including one just over 130 decibels. According to the decibelpro app, 130 decibels are 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, 2024 site visit, the volunteer also spoke with concert event staff at the gate where ticket holders were entering and leaving. The employees said that they are required to wear ear protection at all times at a concert, and also required to offer ear plugs to ticket holders as they enter the venue. However when the EastlakeInfo.net 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 was provided to nor was it seen by concert-goers. The volunteer also reports that on-line advertising and other information provided by promoters of the August 24 concert did not mention any such risk, an omission that seems to prevail with the information provided by other promoters as well.

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. At the very least, loud outdoor concerts should not be held at a location such as Gas Works Park which is located in close proximity to tens of thousands of residences. 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. And in fact, Seattle is unique in permitting the very loud house music and electronic dance music (EDM) concerts so close to residential neighborhoods. In other U.S. cities, such loud /low frequency concerts are held indoors such as as the Westworld Equestrian Center in Scottsdale; or when outdoors are confined to industrial areas such as Denver’s Junkyard, or the Queen Mary Waterfront in Long Beach.

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 the lawsuit by Friends of Gas Works Park. The Parks Superintendent had not even consulted with the Board of Park Commissioners before announcing the concert series that he then had to cancel amid controversy and litigation.

Between 2007 and 2023, the Parks 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. None of these concerts had very high levels of noise, nor did they especially amplify low-frequencies.

But history repeated itself beginning in 2023, with the Parks Department again flouting its its own public involvement policy under which it is committed: [numbers added here] (1) “To invite and encourage direct public involvement…in any proposal that would…substantially modify the property’s use or appearance.” (2) To provide early and thorough notification of proposals and projects, through a variety of means, to users, user groups, neighborhoods, neighborhood groups, and other interested people; and (3) “To complete the process by notifying involved and interested people and groups of final decisions, the impacts of their input on these decisions, and the reasons for them.”

Thus in 2023 without observing any of these obligations in its own public involvement policy, the Department of Parks and Recreation permitted a Sept. 9 concert six hours long at Gas Works Park with highly amplified and included low frequency noise and infrasound. And In 2024 the Department permitted three such events 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. And in 2025, on July 26 the Parks Department allowed its longest yet at nine hours (noon to 9 p.m.). Two additional long, large, loud house music or electronic dance music concerts seem likely to be permitted, with Anjunadeep Open Air Seattle to be either Saturday, August 23, 2025 or Sunday, August 24, 2025; and Diplo’s Run Club afterparty to be on Sunday, Sept. 14, 2025.

The concerts held in 2023, 2024 and so far in 2025 fence off fully half of Gas Works Park, excluding access by the public for up to four days each. Because the parking lot and the adjoining street have has no time limits and are first come, first served, at these events they are mostly occupied free by the vehicles of concert staff and ticketed attendees, with few members of the public able to park nearby.

By permitting such concerts in the summer, the Park Department causes 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. At the time of the 2005-2007 controversy, Gas Works Park’s great designer Richard Haag said at a public meeting that “It is morally (if not legally) inconsistent to deny the general public access to the whole park by partitioning off a central portion for commercial enterprises.”

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 experience as uncomfortable or 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 the 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 should not be automatic. The Parks Department is not required to approve concert permits in any park. 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 Noise Ordinance.

Seattle’s Department of Neighborhoods is also involved in the event permitting process in the role of proposing public outreach and involvement methods to be used by the Special Events Office, the Parks Department, and by the concert permittees. Toward this end the Department of Neighborhoods prepared a manual of outreach methods, unfortunately the Special Events Office and the Parks Department make little use of these methods themselves, nor do they require extensive outreach by the concert permit holders. If any notice is provided at all, only the permittee’s contact information is provided, with no contact for the public agencies nor any statement that they would welcome public input. As a result, the general public is not receiving meaningful or timely notice that a large, loud concert is proposed in their vicinity, nor that the City would benefit from public input, nor when or where to provide this input.

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

Judging from the inadequacy of outreach for all of the concerts that have been permitted at Gas Works Park, the Special Events Office, Parks Department and Department of Neighborhoods’ need to undertake better outreach requirements themselves and need to require better outreach by the applicants. Tens of thousands of people who live or work around the lake, or are otherwise likely to be within earshot of each concert, have not been reached beforehand about notice and comment opportunities. And when the concerts occurred, very few knew aabout them beforehand, nor that the City would welcome their comments, nor how and where to send them.

It is puzzling that the the Special Events Office and the Department of Parks and Recreation have made so little improvement in permitting and public outreach, even one City official wrote to wrote EastlakeInfo.net on September 13, 2024 as follows: “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 and neighborhoods. The statement of policy that has long opened Seattle’s noise ordinance expresses the needed 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 over-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.

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 every interest in squelching opposition to their permit and 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, and direct the comments to, City agencies, not 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. That way, 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 essential. Otherwise, City officials cannot benefit from public comments in deciding whether to issue the permit and if yes, what conditions to place on it. Notice on how to comment during and after a concert is also 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 historyy. 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. 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 to enable concerts at Gas Works Park. 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?

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