Senior Sergeant Brian Benn said the combination of a warm night, the Super 14 rugby match at Carisbrook and SummerJam music event at the Town Hall attracted large crowds of revellers to the city centre.
Many were still in the city well into the early hours yesterday, and police were kept busy rushing from one job to the next, he said.
Police rostered to work a normal 10-hour shift that night instead found themselves working overtime, and without meal or coffee breaks.
"Around the central city there were a lot of people that had had too much to drink and a lot of minor disorder.
"Our staff were very, very busy going from one job to the next all night, and staff stayed on late past the end of their shifts to help out.
"There was just lots of minor street disorder - heaps and heaps of it.
"All the bars were full, with big queues down the footpath. Even at 3 o'clock in the morning, the central city was still absolutely chocker with people."
Police made 14 arrests for a variety of incidents, including fighting, assaults - including men assaulting their partners - and one indecent assault on George St at 3.30am, Snr Sgt Benn said.
Many more incidents were "sorted out" without arrests being made.
Among the incidents which stretched emergency services was a two-vehicle crash involving a van and a Suzuki Swift car on upper Stuart St, Dunedin, about 6.30pm, which required all three St John ambulances available in the city.
Five people from the two vehicles were taken to Dunedin Hospital for treatment, including two needing checks on spinal injuries, St John's SouthComm emergency medical dispatcher Andy Gray, of Christchurch, said.
Three others were believed to have moderate to minor injuries, he said.
It was the start of a busy night for St John in Dunedin, too, with calls to assaults and other disorder as well as to medical events, he said.
"It was just absolutely mad about that time, for work in Dunedin," he said.
"There were a lot of jobs and this started it off."
