Police are investigating a fire which was deliberately lit on Saturday, sometime between 4.30am and 5.30am, in the 18m x 5m hired marquee which served as the main base for the nine-day festival. Senior Constable Brett Pay, of Alexandra, said 23 collapsible chairs in the tent were stacked up and set on fire, scorching and melting its side and roof panels.
"Luckily the [Alexandra Volunteer] fire brigade was there very quickly before the tent material properly caught hold ... if it had gone up, it would've been a major fire."
The site, under large trees, is only metres away from a patch of bare earth marking where an Enviroschools tent was burnt in an arson attack during last year's Thyme Festival. That fire, also started early in the morning, destroyed an 8m x 4m canvas tent as well as the displays and furniture inside.
Snr Const Pay said as far as he was aware, nobody had been arrested for the earlier deliberately lit fire, and he would not rule out a link between it and Saturday morning's fire.
Festival co-ordinator Kathi McLean and festival committee members were shocked and disheartened at the event being targeted again.
"We're shattered, to be honest. Why would anyone do something like this? What do they have against the festival?" Mrs McLean said.
The festival was a community-driven event, "run on a shoestring budget" and all the workshops were heavily subsidised. All the entertainment - the lunchtime concerts and busking and talent contests - was free.
The festival theme is "Cherishing our Environment".
"How is a senseless act like this cherishing our environment?"
As well as costing the festival money, the arson attacks would mean a rethink of how the event was run, she said.
"We can't keep fighting something like this, so I guess we won't be able to have a marquee in the park again."
Despite the setback, no remaining festival activities were cancelled.
A security guard had been on site, but was on the opposite side of the park when the fire started.
Snr Const Pay said there would have been other people around at the time - vehicles travelling through town, and workers starting or finishing shifts. He asked anyone who saw anything suspicious to contact Alexandra police.
Alexandra Chief Fire Officer Russell Anderson said firemen quelled the blaze from outside the tent, with minimal disruption to the site, to allow police the best chance of gathering forensic evidence.
"What's disturbing is the amount of time and trouble that people put into a community event like this and then someone comes along and decides to ruin things," he said.
