This Sweetwaters festival the last?

Press, 31 January 1983, Page 1

This Sweetwaters festival the last?

PA Auckland The Sweetwaters festival held during the week-end at Pukekawa, south of Auckland, may be the last, said an organiser yesterday. _ Mr Paul McLuckie, one of the three responsible for the last four Sweetwaters festivals, said he had no intention of organising another. “It is not a matter of whether we want to organise another, it is whether the public wants it,” he said. Attendance at the festival, which will end today, is down on last year. Mr McLuckie said the festival had broken even, but profits would certainly be lower. Last year, 30,000 tickets were sold by mid-January, but this year, the organisers had been selling tickets throughout the festival at a reduced . price, to boost attendance. The crowd has numbered between 25,000 and 30,000. Thieves are once again making Sweetwaters an ex-

pensive week-end for many music fans. The police, who had 136 complaints yesterday, said that the value of property stolen might exceed last year’s total of $320,000. Thefts included stereo and cassette equipment valued at $l5OO from one car. Most complaints related to thefts of camping equipment The head of the police effort at the festival, Chief Inspector J. Morgan, said that items valued at $200,000 had already been stolen. So far 52 people had been arrested, compared with 23 last year. Mr Morgan said several people had been charged with theft, and some arrests had been made in connection with cannabis charges. Staff at the temporary hospital on the site spent yesterday afternoon tending festival goers who had been hit on the head with beer cans during a number of fights during the stage performance.