After an event marred by an increased number of arrests by the police for disorderly, drunken behaviour, and negative feedback from spectators, organizers of the New Zealand Sevens event in Wellington are set to clamp down drastically on the boozey behaviour of fans.
20 people were arrested while 270 people were ejected at this year's Sevens and police say those numbers are too high despite organizers saying that this was the best behaved crowd at the event to date.
Organizers will respond, possibly even the unlikely option of banning the sale of alcohol at the stadium although they have made a preference for a special license where police set the conditions. The trouble in recent years is the fact that fans have been taking advantage of cheap liquor sales at supermarkets and pre-loaded before the event - not surprising given the exorbitant prices and low quality of alcohol sold at the stadium.
Another idea is to keep the event exclusively in the daytime to make it not only more friendly to families and also mean ensuring that the crowd moves to the city and away from the stadium for their night out.
Whatever happens, something needs to be done to avoid the slippery slope the event finds itself on, towards being a big booze party - especially with the rise of the Auckland Nines tournament a week after the Sevens - the inaugural event showed that you could organize a sports festival and yet keep it relatively well behaved.
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