'Cave rave' shifted indoors

The "cave rave" planned for Long Beach will instead be held at Dunedin nightspot Sammy's after a safety inspection at the beach found revellers could be at risk from loose boulders perched high up a cliff face.

The decision was made by rave organisers yesterday, immediately following an inspection of a large sea cave and cliff face at Long Beach by an independent geological specialist.

Rave organiser David Booth told the Otago Daily Times the specialist had recommended the event be moved because of concerns recent rainfall might have loosened boulders near the top of a 30m-high cliff.

Up to 1000 revellers were expected to spend tomorrow afternoon and evening partying near the bottom of the cliff, in and around the large sea cave, as part of the Cave Sessions 2010 dub/roots music event.

"The rain over the past three days has left the rock face unstable and, as of [Wednesday] morning, event management witnessed a few small rockfalls.

"Put simply, we are not willing to put 1000 people in the path of this risk," Mr Booth said.

Instead, the event would be held at Dunedin nightspot Sammy's tomorrow night.

The venue would be decorated to resemble a cave, he said.

Long Beach Amenities Society spokesman Nic MacArthur said when contacted the decision was "very good news".

"Local people will be pretty darn happy, very overjoyed, and would feel just a teeny bit vindicated," he said.

Mr MacArthur said he had come across organisers at the beach yesterday morning, while visiting the site himself to take "before" photographs documenting the condition of the area to be used for the event.

He suspected the event would be shifted, as no work to prepare the site had begun and the body language of the organisers "wasn't exultant", he said.

Yesterday's inspection was the third undertaken at the site, following visits by council geological and mining consultants before resource consent was granted.

One of 45 conditions and "advice notes" attached to the consent was for further safety inspections to be carried out before the event.

Mr Booth said the cave was still considered safe, and all other conditions would have been met, but he was not prepared to risk the safety of patrons.

About 700 tickets had already been sold.

Organisers would offer to refund $10 bus tickets, Mr Booth said.

There were other one-off expenses, including a $1600 consent fee paid by Mr Booth's company to the council, he said.

"We are going to take a hit but we are going to take a smaller hit doing a back-up [venue] than we would cancelling and doing a refund.

We are just in damage control now."

- chris.morris@odt.co.nz