More than 20 Otago secondary school bands each performed one original song in a bid to progress to regional finals, to be held on May 24 at the University of Otago Union Hall in Dunedin.
Smokefreerockquest director Glenn Common encouraged bands that did not progress to the regional finals to keep writing and playing music, as he had often seen bands return "much stronger and better" to enjoy success in the competition in following years.
Mr Common said competition entries topped 666 nationwide this year - a record in the event's 20-year history.
After two decades, the event was now run in two-thirds of New Zealand secondary schools.
National Smokefreerockquest finals would be held in the Christchurch Town Hall on September 5, and a celebration concert was planned for the following night, featuring past Smokefreerockquest successes.
This year's first prize was $10,000 worth of musical equipment from NZ Rockshop.
Bands would also be aiming to win the Edge Airplay Award with NZ On Air, which would enable the winning band to record their music and video at York St Studios, with guaranteed airplay.
During the next three months, heats and finals would be held in 24 centres around New Zealand and footage from several of the events would be filmed by C4 television.
The bands that progressed to the Otago finals were: New York Minutes (Timaru Boys High School), Cascade (St Hildas Collegiate School), Queen Anne's Revenge (Logan Park High School), TFF (Logan Park and Kings High School), Dusty Strings (Taieri College), Where's Jude? (St Hildas Collegiate), Nadia Reid (Queens High School and Bayfield High School), Sewage (Logan Park), Solitaire (Bayfield), The Intergalactic Jandels (John McGlashan College), Sanhedrin (Kavanagh College), Synesthesia (John McGlashan and Taieri), Fun Time (Kavanagh), Jam (Otago Boys High School).
