By MATT CALMAN - The Dominion Post | Wednesday, 02 January 2008
A happy 20,000-strong crowd in Gisborne was the first to see the New Year sun while jumping to the music at the 5th Rhythm & Vines Festival.
The run of sun-soaked days broke on New Year's Eve, with grey and at times drizzly weather, but it did little to dampen the mood. And yesterday the golden weather returned.
Tom McRae, 24, from Auckland, said his first visit to the festival and his stay at the BW camp ground - a stone's throw from the city's main beach - was one of his best New Years.
The Gisborne locals had been welcoming and everyone was there for a good time.
"Everyone's really friendly. You kind of just get chatting to randoms, hang out, and have a couple of beers.
"The fact that it's R18 at the campground and at Rhythm & Vines is great because you don't get drunken 13 and 14-year-olds passing out at 7 o'clock."
In the lead-up, nearly 10,000 campers stayed at four BW Camping Festival campsites enjoying the live music and sunbathing weather.
Mr McRae said camping with 10,000 other people was chaos, but he praised the organisation and laid-back atmosphere.
Rhythm & Vines' main stage at Waiohika Estate had a strong pre-midnight lineup that included Kiwi bands the Checks, the Mint Chicks, Scribe and dDub.
A light show and a 20-minute fireworks display heralded the start of 2008 before the music resumed till daybreak and beyond. It finally wound up at midday yesterday.
Sergeant Lincoln Sycamore said 40 staff patrolled the festival but did not encounter any trouble.
"Traditionally there's no problems out there and I think last year we had one arrest."
Though the BW Campground - which housed most of the revellers - had its own security, officers patrolled the beach on quad bikes and kept an eye on the area.
Apart from a few cases of theft everyone was well behaved.
"It's generally not the out-of-towners that cause us the problems, it's the locals."
By 5pm yesterday half the campers had gone home
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