One Love Festival director praises Tauranga community, council and police for their input into trouble-free event

Second day of the One Love Festival at crowded Tauranga Domain. 05 February 2017 Bay of Plenty Times Photograph by George Novak

One Love music festival director Pato Alvarez has praised the Tauranga community, council, and police for their co-operation during the sold-out two-day music festival over Waitangi weekend.

Mr Alvarez said the reggae music festival at Tauranga Domain went off without a hitch, and the vast majority of the almost 20,000 attendees were well behaved.

"It went really well. I'm very happy, I'm very pleased, I'm very thankful to the council. We worked with them all year and to deliver a good event for the community, and I think we did a great job as a team, and with the police as well," he said.

Mr Alvarez said he managed to relax and watch most of Sunday's shows. He said the One Love team has already noted improvements to implement next year.

"There are a few things to improve for next year, which we already know what they are, and we're going to make it better and better every year. We listen to the people."

Second day of the One Love Festival at crowded Tauranga Domain. 05 February 2017 Bay of Plenty Times Photograph by George Novak

Mr Alvarez said a more concerted effort went into minimising sound disruptions for locals after a few issues last year.

"The community knew about the event - we did a good job with our marketing campaign. We communicated throughout the neighbourhood with a letter drop and we gave them a number so they could contact us."

Tauranga City Council communications manager Aimee Driscoll said 12 noise complaints were made over the weekend stemming from the festival, down from 122 complaints last year.

She said as part of the resource consent process a noise monitoring process was in place during the event. None of the noise complaints resulted in further action against the festival, as the sound monitoring was below the agreed threshold.

Mr Alvarez said water stations, shade and free sunscreen around the event managed to keep punters cool in the oppressive heat.

He said he was due for a holiday after three multi-day events to start the year.

"Bay Dreams, Mount Park [and One Love]... This week I'll be working and next week I'll probably turn my phone off."

One Love Festival featured Katchafire, Six60, Sons of Zion, Aaradhna, Che Fu, Tarrus Riley and Fiji and The Green.