An apology has been issued to Christchurch fans of the Foo Fighters after many of them were left watching the start of last night's show through a wire fence.

Event contractors Vbase took to Facebook to say sorry after fans complained of delays while queuing to get into AMI Stadium for the first of three New Zealand Foo Fighters shows.

Several took to Twitter to say they missed opening songs Something From Nothing, The Pretender, Learn to Fly and Breakout while they waited to enter.

Vbase blamed the delays on "a huge volume of people who arrived in the final hour" before the show started.

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"We were racing to get everyone through securely and safely. This is something we will learn from for any future large events at the stadium."

Post by Vbase.

But that wasn't enough to please Foo Fighters fans who missed the start of the show.

"The entrance was a shambles," wrote one Facebook commentator.

"You failed miserably at what it is you actually do - effective crowd and event management," wrote another.

Others said the situation was "dangerous".

"It could have developed into something unpleasant or even dangerous with a complete lack of funnelling into a safe and orderly (and efficient) processing system," wrote a third angry fan.

"Clearly you have managers with extremely poor time management skills and lack of foresight ... poor effort."

"We stood in a queue for over an hour and did miss beginning of concert. Many people were working till 5 including me ! VBase not good enough, you should've anticipated the crowds as it was a workday not the weekend. Open more gates and put more people on."

The Foo Fighters also perform a charity show at the Auckland Town Hall on Friday night, and Mt Smart Stadium on Saturday.

- nzherald.co.nz