Ravestyle Productions Inc.

Ok so the time has been long awaited. 6 months ago we planned to travel from Auckland –> Gisborne for a week of camping and Rhythm & Vines! Everything finally came together on the 26th December as I packed everything into the back of the car, ready to leave @ 6am on the 27th December, 2007. As I got out of bed I was excited at the thought of a road trip – it has been 4 years since I did the last decent road trip out of Auckland. I looked out the window and low and behold it was still dark outside, I got dressed, jumped in the car and I was off! Travelled across town to pick up my friend Jay and we were on our way.

First stop was McDonalds as neither of us had breakfast at this point, and a final refuel before leaving Auckland. It took a total of just over 6 hours from having lunch until we arrived at the BWCampground in Gisborne. The day was full of sunshine – not only had we both received a lovely shade of pink skin by the time we arrrived at the campground, the day was scorching hot. It also seemed that most of the campground had decided to arrive about the same time, after finding out that some had been waiting in line for over 4 hours we decided last thing we needed was to spend more time in the sun! Luckily we heard rumour of another check in point for which there was only about a 20minute wait to get your passes so we quickly embarked on our 2.5km walk to the other end of the campground. After arriving at 2pm on the 27th, we finally were in the campground and setup by 5pm ready for some drinks!

The only dissapointment at this stage was that our friends had been seperated to the other side of the area we were camping in, we quickly marched over there to join in drinks with them on the first night crashing early @ 1am. Now, you wouldn’t believe how unbelievably loud it is in a campground of over 7,000 people unless of course you’ve been to BWCampground…our friends quickly nicknamed the site ‘the refugee camp’, since thats totally what it looked like! This matched with the woodenbox showers, and portaloo’s that were just filthy

My friend I was camping with just couldn’t take the lack of sleep overnight with 4am – 6am being the only reasonably quiet time to sleep between, also the lack of facilities available. After spending the best part of an hour driving around motels checking out if any rooms were available we ended up at the Emerald Hotel. Now, I know its not exactly ‘roughing’ it, but after spending 1 night in the campground, 1 group of friends had already disappeared to a relatives house to enjoy the finer side of a nice bed & actual plumbing! I have to say, staying in one of the executive suites of this hotel definately made the time more enjoyable! Serviced room, Airconditioning, Showers, Soft beds; sure beats the hell out of staying in a tent on the ground with nothing much else!

The hotel then served as our base for the remainder of our time in Gisborne. Staying out of the sun in the cool aircon room & shaded balconies, using the nice cool pool facilities, while returning to the campground at night time to drink and catchup with friends!

After a few days of this the day finally rolled around, 31st December, 2007…the day of Rhythm & Vines! Everything was packed up into the car except the tent @ the campground for sleeping in. We shortly started getting amped for Rhythm & Vines with some drinks and a few other…well things. We shortly loaded up the rx7′s & holden with people and made our way to the site through the nice country side of Gisborne!

It seemed on finally making our way into the venue and locating everyone that one of the ‘Special Reserve’ areas was open to the public. We quickly made our way inside to enjoy some drinks before watching some of the acts perform such as New Young Pony Club, The Mint Chicks, Motocade, etc…. You wouldn’t believe how huge this place was, and how spread out the stadiums were! Literally took about 10minute walk between some of the stages, but then what else would you expect with around 15,000 people attending! The truely amazing acts of the night surely were Aural Trash and State of Mind (with MC TwinCam)….they were absolutely mindblowing! The event was very well organised with food stalls, booze tent, power nap area, hammocks for hire and even featured an ‘enchanted forrest’ for chilling out in!

The night finally came to an end around 6am with the 1st sunrise of 2008. We slowly made our way back to the campground. It was decided originally to sleep in the tent but this plan quickly changed. We packed up the tent and made our way to the hotel. Unfortunately all the rooms were booked out and wouldn’t be ready until 2pm. At this time it was around 10am and we decided to take off back to Auckland. Why wait 4hrs for a hotel room when u can be 2/3 of the way home in that time?!

New Years didn’t turn out as expected but still had an amazing time. Next time though I think…something a bit closer to home!

Some pictures can be found here