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Adele Brisbane: Traffic chaos builds as fans try to get to concert early

Felicity Caldwell

Traffic chaos has hit Brisbane as fans try to get to the Adele concert at the Gabba early.

The concert is due to begin at 7.30pm, but people were advised to leave up to three hours for travel time.

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Adele Brisbane arrivals: time lapse

A bird's eye view of 60,000 people pouring into the Gabba to watch Adele perform on Saturday night.

Australian Traffic Network traffic reporter Olympia Kwitowski confirmed the "traffic chaos" had begun.

"Especially if you're trying to get out of the city on the Riverside Expressway, that's just ridiculous," Ms Kwitowski said.

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"I'm sure everyone's in the left lane wanting to take the exit.

"But it's past this point into the city and it's just building.

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"People are getting in early and everyone is going in early at the same time."

About 5.15pm, the delays on the Riverside Expressway were back to the city around Queen's Wharf Road, and gets heavy over the Captain Cook Bridge and onto the Vulture Street off-ramp.

"And going to the Vulture Street off-ramp, it's not even moving, it's a crawl if you're moving at all," Ms Kwitowski said.

"Vulture Street is a mess down to Wellington Road."

Ms Kwitowski said delays on Ipswich Road were starting to build again, and Ipswich Road northbound was closed at Stanley Street.

Main Street, as it came off the Story Bridge, had delays southbound from Thomas Street down to Vulture Street just after 5pm.

Ms Kwitowski said public transport was a good option to get to the concert instead of driving.

"They tried to get everyone to do a staggered entry, so this would avoid it, but the Gabba busway would have been a great option," she said.

People on social media have also reported lines of people waiting to get on buses to get to the Gabba. 

Traffic congestion started to build around the inner-south about 3.45pm on Saturday.

Ms Kwitowski said the first roads affected were the Vulture Street off-ramp from the Pacific Highway.

"Then it got pretty heavy through all the back streets, like Wellington Road, Logan Road, Balaclava Street," she said.

"Ipswich Road was at one stage pretty much back to O'Keefe Street near the Princess Alexandra Hospital heading inbound."

There are also queues of people building outside the venue before the gates had even opened.

On Twitter, Jillian Whiting said she did not have trouble getting to the Gabba, but she was waiting for entry.

The gates have since opened at 5.30pm.

Fans are lining the footpath and crowding restaurants around the suburb, and hoping the rain stays away.

 

Queueing for Adele. Wow. There be the entire population of Queensland here. And us.

A post shared by Glenn Farrell (@traindriverrev) on

But others reported a speedy journey to the Gabba and said advice to leave extra travel time was not required.

Cameron Kusher tweeted: "So the stories of 2 hours commutes to the #Brisbane Adele concert were #fakenews it took 10 minutes to drop my wife off."

Adele is performing in Brisbane on Saturday and Sunday nights as part of her Australian tour.

The two shows are expected to attract crowds of 60,000 people to the cricket stadium at Woolloongabba.

Shuttle buses are running every two minutes from Roma Street Station to the shows, and every 30 seconds back to the inner-city station at the conclusion of the concerts.

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