With the last All Blacks test at Carisbrook, and the last night at the Castle St student haunt, the Gardens Tavern, initially scheduled for Saturday night, emergency services were prepared for the worst.
But most ended up having a relatively quiet weekend.
There were 38 arrests on Saturday, eight for disorder, eight for assault and the rest for minor offences, Senior Sergeant Bruce Ross said yesterday.
No incidents resulted in serious injuries, he said.
The Gardens Tavern's closure after 30 years had been much anticipated by fans of the bar and postings on social networking sites indicated hundreds had planned on travelling to Dunedin for the bar's last night.
In anticipation, Dunedin authorities put a liquor ban in place, visited student flats and planned a large emergency service presence in North Dunedin, including officers from Invercargill and Christchurch.
The tavern had been advertising its last day as Saturday right up to Friday morning, but owner Pete Innes-Jones confirmed on Friday afternoon it was not going to open the next day.
The bar was drunk dry by 11.30pm on Friday and punters left in a reasonably orderly fashion, most catching one of the free buses put on by police into the central city.
Castle St was quiet, and many of the flats along the street appeared to be uninhabited at the weekend, though there was one couch fire on Saturday outside a party in Castle St North.
Security guards turned people away from the closed bar on Saturday, and it was quiet all night.
Inspector Alastair Dickie, of Dunedin Police, said yesterday he was "very pleased" with the weekend.
There had been 55 police rostered for North Dunedin, and 40 for the test match.
There was only one arrest at the Gardens Tavern, and the buses had helped, being used "continuously".
The crowd at the pub had been both younger and older people, and had been good-natured.
While behaviour at the Carisbrook match had been mostly good, Insp Dickie said the 40 police attending were "certainly needed" during the evening.
• A male in his 20s was hit by a van on Burns St near Carisbrook at about 6.30pm on Saturday. He received minor injuries, and was taken to Dunedin Hospital.
