‘Out the gate’: Electric Avenue ‘better’ as two-day event

Sunday, 23 February 2025

Christchurch’s biggest party has wrapped up, resulting in happy punters, happy bar and hotel owners and mostly happy police.

Police were generally pleased with crowd behaviour, but were disappointed to see “a lot of people under the influence of drugs” and some people arriving heavily intoxicated.

The music festival, which saw 35,000 people through the gates on Friday and 36,000 on Saturday, helped Christchurch’s accommodation reach 98% capacity with more than two-thirds of ticket holders from outside the city.

The event cost $12 million, with almost half the budget absorbed by artist fees and accommodation, RNZ reported.

For Christchurch woman Fanchea Molony, 22, the prospect of the festival expanding to two days for the first time in its 10-year history had been “interesting” because punters, including herself, had to worry about surviving both days.

But she ranked the festival as the best yet, with the overall running of the festival far better over two days.

The “overall vibe was out the gate”, she said. It had a good crowd feel that was “more chill” during the days because people were pacing themselves.

As the sun faded and the stage lights and electric laser beams shot into the sky, people got rowdy and had a “great time”.

“This year was the best line up with a range of genres,” she said.

“[Saturday’s headliner] The Prodigy was so weird but kinda cool - all the oldies emerged out of nowhere for them.”

Molony waited at most two minutes for the toilets and enjoyed short lines for drinks. Getting into the festival was also much quicker than last year, when she waited 40 minutes.

Her only gripes were “shocking” cell phone reception on the first day, and hiked-up Uber prices to get to her Bishopdale home, up from $18 to $60.

For those like Natalia Barberel, who were put off the festival after a bad experience two years ago when it was “too crowded” with long wait times, this year was “heaps better”.

“The acts were fantastic and it was so well managed. If you had a solid plan with your mates about what acts you were going to see and where to meet after the toilets, it was a breeze,” Barberel said.

“The crowd was having the best time and that was obvious.”

Barberel only saw one woman “hit the deck” from being too intoxicated, but “everyone around her responded in the best way, got her out safely, made sure she was all right”.

Christchurch friends Chloe Zainey and Brooklyn Higgs made sure to get to the front of the crowd for their favourite acts, and said it was a “great two days [with] great artists” and good weather.

Zainey said the two-day festival meant they could explore areas or stages they missed on Friday on Saturday instead.

Festival organiser Callam Mitchell said it was too early to say if this year’s event was the best yet. That was a decision for others to make and crews would gather that feedback through post-event surveys, he said.

But what he was sure of was his gratitude and pride at pulling off Christchurch’s biggest party.

“I’m just so happy with how our team pulled together to deliver it. The vibe was next level, it had this big international European festival feel about it,” Mitchell said.

He said it was “pretty special” to expand to two days in the event’s 10th year, which the crowd really responded to by committing to attend both days and bringing “good energy”.

From a viewing tower on site, he watched the crowds shift from stage to stage and felt they were engaged with the artists and “really there for the music”.

“Chase & Status were incredible, Prodigy were mind-bending,” he said of the headline acts.

“I want to express gratitude for the artists, the crowd for bringing the vibe, to our team, all the stakeholders, and all the residents nearby,” Mitchell said.

“We will always strive to make it better.”

Mitchell told RNZ the struggle to get headline talent was a big issue, with the cost of getting headline talent “going through the roof”.

'If you look at Coachella last year they struggled to get some of the big headline artists that they have done in previous years,' he told RNZ. 'A lot of those acts were off doing stadium shows and tours and probably prefer it that way where they can control every aspect of the show.”

Christchurch hospitality venues also cashed in on the event, with bars and restaurants crammed with festival-goers.

Fiddlesticks Restaurant and Bar worker Sherry Chen said it was a busy weekend. The outside seating area was full the entire Saturday with a regular turnover of customers piling in to get a cocktail before the festival.

Chen was told by tourists the town was crowded, loud and bustling with traffic - making finding a car park a challenge.

Trade across the central city was “notably a lot busier for lunch”, then softened for dinner hours, and ramped up again in the evening around midnight, Hospitality NZ’s Christchurch representative Jeremy Stevens said.

Festival-goers were “pacing themselves over two days” and therefore dined out on a big lunch, before heading to the festival in the afternoon, he said.

It meant the dinner trade was quieter, but the benefits from so many visitors to the city lasted the rest of the week.

“It’s a great asset to the city … definitely puts Christchurch on the map,” Stevens said.

Police detective senior sergeant Karen Simmons was impressed with the “well organised and managed” event. Officers helped security guards with fence jumpers, minor disorder and assaults, and evictions due to intoxication.

“Crowd behaviour when people were leaving the festival was good, with only minor disorder reported in the CBD on Saturday night.”

Festival-goers were mostly behaved, but police were disappointed to see drug use and people arriving heavily intoxicated, Simmons said.

While some buzzed on alcohol, others planned on using MDMA (ecstasy) to keep their energy levels high, said Nick Shand, Canterbury’s regional lead for the not-for-profit drug testing station Know Your Stuff.

Shand told The Press on Friday staff were providing a lot of education to younger festival-goers about recreational drug use as it was “a very young crowd and all those young people are quite inexperienced in multi-day drug use”.

St John had 44 staff present each day to provide first aid and medical cover.

“The team reported it was a well managed event and they experienced a steady workload across both days, assisting festival-goers with a variety of minor injuries including blisters, minor cuts, and sprains,” a spokesperson said.