Big crowd Fritters away weekend

Josh Crawford, Whangarei band Co-Lab's singer entertains the large crowd at the Whangarei Fritter Festival.

A well-behaved and bumper crowd of more than 5000, great music, food and wine marked Whangarei's third annual Fritter Festival.

Venues and Events Whangarei manager John Lynch said the festival at Toll Stadium was such a success on Saturday it would be on again next year, and hopefully bigger and better.

Mr Lynch said the crowd had grown from around 3100 for the first Fritter Festival to almost 4000 last year and around 5300 on Saturday, showing that the aim of establishing a top class event was coming to fruition.

The weather largely played its part on the day with Kiwi music legend Dave Dobbyn, 1814, Tempist Fujit, Tahuna Breaks, Co-Lab, JPG and more, as well as fine food and wine all on the menu for a great day out, he said.

"All the musicians were great, with Dave Dobbyn showing what an awesome act he is," Mr Lynch said. "It helps to have such good music to bring the crowds in and we purposely tried to get music that would attract a broad range of people."

He said about 20 per cent of the crowd were expected to have come from outside of Northland for the event, putting money into the local economy.

This year, organisers introduced a red and yellow card system as a reminder to people to watch their alcohol intake.

A yellow card meant slow down drinking, have something substantial to eat, drink water between drinks and be sensible, while a red card meant: Stop drinking, eat lots and drink water, you are no longer allowed to be served and a time out room is available if needed.

Mr Lynch said a few yellow and red cards were issued, but only one person was sent to the time out room, where she was given food and water until she could rejoin the crowd. Police reported few problems from the crowd, although Mr Lynch said one person had to be ejected.

"That's not bad from a crowd of more than 5000 people. The crowd were very well behaved," he said.

Several people had to be warned for smoking - both cannabis and tobacco - in the venue, but Mr Lynch did not think it was a big problem.

Also, several cars of festival goers were broken in to. They had done the right thing by parking in the stadium carpark or the one at Cobham Oval overnight.