Flashback: Five major Gold Coast Schoolies moments from decades of celebrations and partying

FOR the class of 2016, it’s the end of the world as they know it, with their time at Schoolies marking the end of their schooling and the beginning of the rest of their lives.

Schoolies partying in the mid-1990s.

FOR this year’s school leavers, the pilgrimage to the Gold Coast for Schoolies is the end of one world — and the start of another.

Thousands of mostly 17-year-olds are in Surfers Paradise this week celebrating their first steps into adulthood and the prospects of responsibility, tertiary study, jobs and extended travel.

But they are not the only ones reaching a milestone. Schoolies itself has undergone a dramatic change for the better in the past 20 years thanks to a raft of safety measures.

Schoolies 2016 on the Gold Coast

VIEW GALLERY

The annual rite of passage dates back around 40 years but organised events only started in the 1990s after years of concerns about behaviour.

We look back at five major Schoolies moments:

1992: Early warning

WHILE school leavers had been coming to the Gold Coast to mark the end of their primary and secondary schooling for decades, celebrations began to get out of control in the early 1990s.

In 1992, fears grew over the behaviour of revellers, including pranks and out-of-control benders.

A party at the Greek Orthodox Church in Surfers Paradise ended with a man suffering severe head, leg and arm injuries. He ended up in intensive care in hospital.

Schoolies also indulged in pranks such as diving into private pools, climbing fences and throwing water bombs form high rises.

1994-1995: Out of Control

IN late November 1994, 17-year-old Miami High student Emma Courtney was killed in a hit-and-run incident at the beginning of Schoolies week. Police later determined she had a blood-alcohol level of 0.18.

That year police made more than 150 arrests and 67 minors were charged with drinking offences. A year later the number of arrests fell slightly to 100.

These numbers disturbed city leaders, who decided to form a Schoolies taskforce.

1996: The change

SCHOOLIES 1996 was declared by the Gold Coast City Council and State Government at the time to be a “watershed event” that would determine the future of the annual celebration and shape organiser policy into the 21st century.

The mayor, along with champion ironman Trevor Hendy, championed the idea of “chill-out zones”, which offered revellers refreshments, first aid and people to walk them home.

About 35 police officers, including 18 members of the Public Safety Response Team from Brisbane, patrolled the streets.

Police were understood to have been directed by senior officers not to throw underage revellers into the Southport Watchhouse, but instead target the older “yobbo” element that had caused problems in earlier years. These older people would later become known as “toolies”.

The changes instituted that year had an immediate impact, with the Bulletin reporting that, over the opening weekend of Schoolies ’96, more than 80 per cent of those arrested were toolies.

2004: Fake IDs

POLICE told Schoolies ahead of the 2004 celebrations that fake IDs would not be tolerated.

Despite the warning, fake IDs ended up becoming one of the major talking points with police arresting five Gold Coast teenagers on the eve of celebrations.

The five were charged over the manufacture of hundreds of counterfeit Queensland driver’s licences, 18-plus cards and student cards.

Police also seized computers containing hundreds of names, photos and contact details of “customers” who had bought fake IDs.

2009: The worst

THE 2009 celebrations are regarded as the event’s worst, with arrests skyrocketing 50 per cent and police labelling revellers “louts”.

By the end of the week, 196 schoolies were arrested compared to 118 in 2008 while 305 non-schoolies were arrested compared with 273 the previous year.

The majority of arrests were for minor offences such as urination and drinking in public, with two people taken into custody for carrying a pocketknife and an extendible baton.

The class of ’09 was later called “one of the grubbiest and grottiest yet”.