63 Arrested After Festival Campground Riot

A campground riot has seen 63 arrested and 83 injured at New Zealand's BW Festival.

Located in Gisbourne in the country's north east, BW runs alongside the Rhythm & Vines festival — arguably New Zealand's biggest New Year's Eve events. The BW festivities take place early in the week and has live music on the 27th and 28th December, with the campgrounds staying open for 18-to-20-year olds heading to Rhythm & Vines on the next three days, which runs 29th, 30th and 31st December.

Both had high-profile Australian acts on the bill including Chet Faker and Flume.

News of a riot at the grounds filtered through to theMusic.com.au in the Rhythm & Vines media room on New Year's Eve evening, but it wasn't until morning that the full extent of the riots were realised. 

From approximately 5pm several fires were lit in the BYO grounds, while beer cans were thrown at police and at least one vehicle overturned. Police reportedly fought the crowd for three hours.

"It was pure luck that someone didn't lose their life," Tairawhiti area commander Inspector Sam Aberahama told the NZ Herald.

The incident will surely bring the BW Festival's BYO liquor license — and perhaps even that of Rhythm & Vines' — into question. The festivals do have a supporter in the local Mayor however, who is well aware of the economic benefits the events bring to the region.

"I don't see any reason for it not to go ahead again," Gisborne Mayor Meng Foon told Stuff.co.nz. "The Rhythm and Vines part was excellent and a few idiots at the BW one ruined that part of it."

He added, "It brings in a lot of visitors. Economically it is good for us and the exposure is good for us… 20,000 people came and 63 got arrested to put it in perspective."

BW Campground Director Toby Burrows was not as confident. 

"There is definitely a risk that it won't continue," he told Newstalk ZB. "After any event there is always a risk that it won't continue. Hopefully it will. We're into our 12th year and there has been a lot of hard work and planning over the years.

"The aim is to continue it but we have to sit down and talk with the emergency services and different parties and come up with the right solutions to make it a safe event and make it feasible."

He added, "We put serious amount of planning and resourcing into this, especially into controlling the behaviour on the 31st. There were a number of things we did all week to help control the behaviour and they worked very well for the week but on the last day it didn't seem to work. It's pretty early to work out where it went wrong.

"It is very gutting. There is a lot of work and planning goes into it and it is gutting because a minority of people ruin it for everyone else. A lot of kids were very well behaved and were just there to have a good time."

Rhythm & Vines is the first music festival is the world to welcome in the new year and this year featured Australian acts Chet Faker, Ta-Ku and Little May alongside headline Netsky and Bastille. 

Earlier in the week BW had featured Australians Flume, Peking Duk Sticky Fingers on their line-up.

A full report on Rhythm & Vines, which was held without major incident, will be posted on theMusic.com.au shortly.