Hot time at Coromandel Gold

DONNA WALSH/ Waikato Times

HAPPY CROWD: Audience members show their appreciation for Shapeshifter.

DONNA WALSH/ Waikato Times

GIVING HIS ALL: Katchafire's Logan Bell, during the band's set.

DONNA WALSH/ Waikato Times

ENTERTAINER: Tiki Taane at Whitianga's Coromandel Gold music festival on New Year's Eve.

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Thousands of hands swayed in the air as Hamilton band Katchafire set the scene for the Coromandel Gold music festival in Whitianga on New Year's eve.

Ohuka Farm on Buffalo Beach Rd was packed with 10,000 mainly twenty-somethings in high spirits celebrating the arrival of 2010 at the 12 hour inaugural festival.

For a few hours punters were left hungry and thirsty after the Eftpos terminal crashed, but the rest of the sell-out event went relatively smoothly despite a large number of alcohol-fuelled festival goers.

Headline act Shapeshifter stole the show at midnight, counting down the end of 2009 as fireworks lit up the night sky.

Taranaki woman Leah Salisbury had used the festival as an opportunity to have a high school reunion. She and 20 former New Plymouth Sacred Heart Girls College students used a scarf as a makeshift skipping rope to jump along to the music in the hot afternoon sun.

The 22-year-old said the six-month preparation for the event had been worth the wait.

"It's amazing."

Aucklander Jamie McKenzie stood to the back of the crowd grooving to the music, while his girlfriend chatted to her friends.

"It's a great atmosphere. I love it."

Police arrested six people for trespassing.

Event organiser Mark Wright said overall most people behaved themselves and he planned to run it again next year.

- © Fairfax NZ News