Schoolies Flashback: How Gold Coast partied on Surfers Paradise beach 20 years ago in 1997
IMAGINE seeing Silverchair and The Offspring play a gig on Surfers Paradise Beach. This dream double-header was a reality of the 1997 Schoolies Festival as school leavers let their hair down to party.
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FOR the class of 2017, today is the beginning of the rest of their lives.
With 12 years of schooling behind them, it’s time for the kids to let their hair down and celebrate at the annual Schoolies festival.
The right-of-passage event kicked off this weekend, with tens of thousands of 17 and 18-year-olds flooding the city to party.
But how did the Schoolies of 20 years ago do it?
Students of the Gold Coast that year were ready to party and have fun while admitting to bittersweet feelings of leaving school.
Student Nicole Boden was photographed at Miami High getting her uniform signed by her friends and said she was looking forward to the party before starting a job in childcare.
“It hasn’t hit yet ... it will next year when we won’t have to go back to school,” said fellow Miami student Sheree Knox.
Unlike the highly organised Schoolies festival of today, the 1997 event was a far looser affair.
Events on the schedule were:
● Nightly movies on the beach.
● A free concert with tributes to Oasis, Pearl Jam and Nirvana which kicked off the week.
● A free concert feature Custard, Frontend Loader, Mr Wees and One Eyed Milkman.
● Nightly skateboarding demonstrations.
● A final concert featuring Silverchair and The Offspring.
But the kids of 1997 were not alone, it was said that parent power would rule the streets along with police.
Schoolies co-ordinator and future Gold Coast councillor Sgt Margaret Grummitt warned parents what they might expect to see in helping keep children safe.
“You’ll probably see vomiting girls. This is a spit bucket, we have four of these,” she said while showing the others one of the containers provided at the Chill Out zones.
Mother of two Judi Vickerman wrote to Gold Coast schools asking concerned parents to lend a hand.
“It is a worthwhile community experience to be involved in,” she said.
“We can’t erect barriers around Surfers and say ‘don’t come here’. You can make their partying as safe as possible.”
On the first weekend there were crowds of around 10,000 expected but the numbers ultimately far exceeded this.
Former Keebra Park students Rebecca Vasil, Alana Nicholls and Anna Mack appeared on the Bulletin front page celebrating in the streets of Surfers Paradise.
But police took no chances in combating the use of illicit drugs.
In a sign of things to come, Schoolies were subjected to daily room searches and forced to wear identification tags while staying at major apartment blocks.
Unit mangers had written the conditions into lease agreements in a bid to evict hangers-on.
Some unit mangers used additional security and authorised guards to inspect rooms daily and confiscate liquor in glass bottles.
The move infuriated some Schoolies.
“Schoolies has been pretty good except the hotel we are staying in sucks,” Christin Burns, of Brisbane, said. Nardiah Bootes and Libby Simmons, also from Brisbane, said the extra security was “an insult”.
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