Queenstown Returned and Services' Association president Dave Geddes walks up to the microphone and starts to apologise.
Mr Geddes, hosting Queenstown's first Anzac Day dawn service in living memory, says he's miscalculated its popularity - an estimated 800 locals and visitors have turned up but he only has 200 orders of service to hand out.
They've come from all over for the ceremony in the morning darkness at Queenstown Bay's Memorial Gates monument to the fallen.
There's Australian World War 2 veteran Ray Dunn, who visits each Anzac Day from Kaitaia, where he lives with wife Colleen, a former Queenstowner - the recently married couple developed their relationship at Queenstown's RSA.
There's the four-strong Lellman family - Fraser and Kathryn with children Fergus (11) and Ellen (14) - all of Tauranga, but in Queenstown for a conference.
Ellen says: ''I think it's nice to get up early and show you remember - they gave their lives and it's OK if you give up a bit of time and sleep and warmth.''
And there's Queenstowner Spike Wademan, whose grandfather survived World War 1 but lost an eye during the harrowing Battle of the Somme.
My family were very fortunate in World War 1 and World War 2. None of them were lost; they all came back ... but they came back with scars, mental and physical.''
Mr Geddes, addressing those assembled, says the occasion is not about glorifying war but paying respects to those who fought and suffered for the freedoms and rights we enjoy today.
''Haunting, isn't it,'' Colleen murmurs as a lone piper's rendition of Flowers of the Forest rings out.
After the final strains of the Last Post, played by local musician Trevor Tattersfield, and laying of wreaths at the war monument - emblazoned with the words ''Service before self'' - many walk up to lay poppies.
Others simply hug and weep, lost in their own memories and reflections.
Deputy Prime Minister and Clutha-Southland MP Bill English, who will speak at a second service hours later about how Afghanistan is as unlikely a place for Kiwis to fight as Turkey was in World War 1, says it's great to have a dawn service in Queenstown.
''I think it's going to stick.''
By Ryan Keen, of Mountain Scene.
