Carloads of happy campers leaving the Rhythm and Vines music festival. Photo / James Pocock
Carloads of happy campers leaving the Rhythm and Vines music festival. Photo / James Pocock
A queue of traffic lined Gisborne’s Back Ormond Rd as Rhythm and Vines festivalgoers packed up their muddy gear and got ready to move on at the close of the event on New Year’s Day.
Traffic flowed relatively smoothly through a police breath test checkpoint set up outside the venueon Wednesday morning.
Still, cars could be seen waiting for hundreds of metres back inside Waiohika Estate.
Back in Gisborne’s city centre, George Lanky and his friends from Christchurch were enjoying a feed from a bakery.
They stayed through all four nights for their first R&V, which included the Waiohika Warmup pre-event, sticking it out through the muddy conditions.
“It was a bit wet, but it was so much fun once you got the drinks in your system,” Lanky said.
“My tent got pretty gross. It looked like someone had diarrhoea in my tent, but it was fine. I didn’t really care too much about it - everything can get washed.”
Lanky said his favourite acts were probably Australian dance music producer LUUDE or Ice Spice.
Cars could be seen waiting for hundreds of metres back inside Waiohika Estate the morning after Rhythm and Vines.Photo / James Pocock
Harry Parsons, of Auckland-based alternative pop act MACEY, performed on the final night in what was the act’s third R&V.
Parsons said the muddy conditions were “gnarly”.
“I’ve been comparing it to Woodstock. It was pretty much a slush pool out there,” he said.
“We were playing the Garden Stage which was quite nice ... it was the only sheltered stage, so that was pretty nice.”
Parsons said everyone in the crowd was “really into it” and was there to have fun.
“When it is raining like that, you kind of just have to commit. You’re going to get muddy and everyone else is in that same frame of reference, you know? It doesn’t matter if you are playing or a festivalgoer – everyone is in the muck together.”
On Tuesday, 10 drivers out of 7500 breath tested by Tairāwhiti police over the Rhythm and Vines period faced court appearances. Photo / James Pocock
On Tuesday, only 10 drivers out of 7500 breath-tested by Tairāwhiti police over the Rhythm and Vines period faced court appearances.
In a statement released yesterday, Senior Sergeant Craig Vining said police were “pleased” with the driving behaviour of most in the R&V and Gisborne areas.
Over the last three days, police conducted around 7500 breath tests in and around the Gisborne area, including on the main highways, the statement read.
“In this time, 10 drivers have been summonsed to court for excess breath or blood alcohol levels, and seven have received infringement notices for breaching alcohol limits.”
Vining said most of the festivalgoers attending Rhythm and Vines made the right decisions when it came to drinking and driving.
They made plans ahead of time to ensure they had a sober driver or made other arrangements to make sure they were not driving while impaired.
St John area operations manager Shane Clapperton said R&V was a “very successful” event from St John’s point of view, despite the wet weather conditions.
Clapperton said St John staff were busy over New Year’s Eve and into the morning of New Year’s Day - from 9pm until 2am.
“Two people went to hospital, one with a medical problem and the other with a serious thumb injury from slipping over,” he said.
“We had a great team who worked well together, including staff from out of town.”
