A free ballot decides who stays on Cockatoo Island this New Year’s Eve. It closes soon.

I spent Friday night on Cockatoo Island/Wareamah, in a two-bedroom Harbour View Apartment with a verandah pointed straight down the harbour, and I said the same thing roughly nine times before dinner: imagine this on New Year’s Eve.

Turns out you can. You just have to win a ballot, and it closes at 2pm AEST on Wednesday 16 September.

The Sydney Harbour Federation Trust is putting 11 of its holiday houses and apartments into a public ballot for the New Year’s Eve period. Entry is free; you can nominate up to three properties, and if your name comes out, you get a four-night minimum stay: check-in from 3pm on Tuesday 29 December, check-out on Saturday 2 January. Prices run from $3900 to $12,000 for the four nights. This year’s ballot also marks the debut of the Dockmaster’s Residence, an 1848 sandstone building put up by convicts using stone quarried on the island, restored and sleeping eight at $12,000.

Winners will be called by 5pm on Thursday 17 September and have to say yes on the call, with a 50 per cent deposit due at that moment. The full balance is payable by 20 November. No refunds or changes are permitted.

What’s the cost breakdown?

Look at the list and $12,000 is what jumps out. Look at it per person and the pricing turns itself inside out.

The cheapest property on offer is a one-bedroom Harbour View Apartment at $3900, which sleeps two. That’s $487.50 per person per night, the most expensive bed in the ballot. The two $10,000 Heritage Houses sleep 12, which works out to $208 per person per night. The new Dockmaster’s Residence, at $12,000 for eight, sits at $375. The two-bedroom apartment I stayed in is $6500 for up to five, or $325.

So the entry-level listing is the least value for money and the second dearest is the best, and the variable doing all the work is how many people you can round up. $208 per person, per night, on Sydney Harbour on New Year’s Eve is not a mad number. It’s roughly what a decent hotel room costs in this city on a Tuesday in March.

There’s a reason the group size matters more than usual here. On 31 December, the island closes to everyone without an accommodation booking, and ballot winners are explicitly barred from inviting day guests. Whoever is on your booking is your entire New Year’s Eve. Get the maximum occupancy right at the ballot stage, or you’re paying premium rates to have a smaller party than you planned.

Camping packages are available

If the ballot feels like a lot of money resting on a phone call, the campground is the accessible version of the same view.

NYE camping packages go on sale at 9am AEST on Tuesday 22 September, with a pre-sale for the island’s NYE mailing list on Monday 21 September. It’s a two-night stay, arriving Wednesday 30 December and leaving Friday 1 January. BYO tent sites start at $590 plus a booking fee for a four-person site facing the Harbour Bridge, and $690 for a six-person one. Pre-erected packages also start at $690 for the basic setup, climbing through to a deluxe waterfront package (Harbour Bridge view) at $1290 to a premium waterfront package (Woolwich view) at $1350, of which only two exist.

Run the same per-person sum and the six-person BYO site lands at about $57.50 a head per night. That is the cheapest legitimate Sydney Harbour fireworks view I know of that comes with a bed.

One catch worth knowing before you book: campers can’t bring alcohol onto the island and have to buy it from the licensed cafes, while house and apartment guests can bring their own in moderate amounts. It’s a real difference in what the night costs and what it feels like, and it isn’t obvious until you’re deep in the terms and conditions.