Eight people have been arrested after a brawl that involved as many as 100 teenagers from several Auckland schools on a wealthy beachfront.
And it has been revealed the fight was organised weeks in advance via Instagram.
About 40 police officers were called to Mission Bay's Selwyn Reserve about 4.30pm yesterday to break up the fight.
A police spokeswoman said this morning eight people had been arrested.
"Seven were for disorder/fighting and one for assault. All were youths and have been spoken to.
"Police are still conducting inquiries to establish the circumstances. No further updates for now."
Several readers have contacted the Herald about the fight, saying it was organised through Instagram, and was one of many upcoming brawls involving students of schools in the "dirty south" and "west Auckland".
"Dirty south was largely outnumbered by west Auckland and dirty south are set to recruit numbers from schools in South Auckland," a reader said.
"Instagram stories are already up advertising a round two possibly at Mission Bay again."
Friday's brawl was reportedly advertised through Instagram for the past two weeks, with messages such as: "Open Invite ... This Friday bring your boys to Missions bring a box (alcohol) ... May the toughest school win."
Another reader said a similar fight occurred a week ago across the road from Selwyn Reserve on Atkin Ave.
"Same thing happened last Friday night. Youths assembled across [the] road from [the] reserve on Atkin Ave and when I drove through they were facing off and gathering weapons such as real estate stakes."
Police confirmed they were called to reports of a "disorder incident" involving a large number of teenagers on Tamaki Dr in Mission Bay.
"Upon police arrival, some of the teenagers involved continued to fight for a period of time," a police spokesperson said.
"Police staff from throughout Auckland were called to assist and a number of arrests have been made for fighting in a public place.
"Police have been speaking to a number of people at the scene and the crowd has since dispersed."
Police said yesterday they were not immediately aware of any serious injuries.
A witness at yesterday's fight said police were responding to a group of about 100 teenagers who had been fighting since 3.30pm.
"There was just this massive group of people and they were congregating, just walking around, but then you would see certain groups of people splitting off and start fighting each other.
"Then police start coming and all sorts of things happened.
"They just broke off into different groups and started throwing hands at each other. I'm not sure if they knew each other.
"I'd say maybe a hundred people were all grouped up on the reserve."
A separate witness said: "The whole of Mission Bay was full of youths drinking. It was inevitable they were going to brawl."
Another witness at the scene said the fighting was between two separate groups of senior students from different schools, who had been congregating on the beach for the past week.
"There were some drunk young teens who were fighting down by Mission Bay House and in the car park there," another witness said.
"The whole things lasted about an hour. There were lots of kids hanging around drinking.
"We saw about 50 to 60 kids being pushed one way by police.
"We saw one or two arrests, police pushing people down and handcuffing a few teens."
Twenty-one police vehicles, including three buses, had arrived on the scene, according to witnesses.
At 36, Alicia McKay is an internationally successful consultant, author and speaker.
