Regardless of the group's decision, a liquor ban for a wide area of central Dunedin has been put in place for August 19-21, the weekend the group was planning the event here.
The ban will be back in force from September 9 to October 3, to stop people drinking in public while walking to Rugby World Cup matches.
Ensoc is the group behind the infamous Undie 500 event, which brought considerable disorder to Dunedin in the past.
It emerged last week the organisation was planning another event, the "Great Quake Escape", though Ensoc promised a tightly organised weekend, with alcohol-free buses bringing the students here and taking them home.
The event was marketed as a celebration for students from both cities who helped out after the Christchurch earthquake in February.
Ensoc president Loren Burnett met Dunedin police and city council representatives in Dunedin on Friday, and a further meeting was planned for yesterday, but he said the Great Quake Escape was cancelled after the media had wrongly portrayed it as being the Undie 500.
He told the Otago Daily Times last night media reports on radio and television had raised the concerns of the police and council, and Ensoc decided, because of that, not to go ahead.
The gesture to cancel the event showed the group wanted to work with authorities on the issue, and "respect their thoughts".
"A few years down the track, we would like to run another event in Dunedin," Mr Burnett said.
At a Dunedin City Council planning and environment committee meeting yesterday, liquor licensing and projects officer Kevin Mechen said police had asked for the ban, which took in an area from Jetty St to North Dunedin, and covered the city centre and the area around the Forsyth Barr Stadium, to be put in place despite the cancellation.
The event had been cancelled in the past, and people had still turned up from Canterbury and caused problems.
The ban would only be invoked "if a group of students arrived", and even then people would be warned before police took action.
A report from Mr Mechen said liquor bans had been a useful tool for police, and had resulted in a decrease in alcohol-related violence in the past.
A recommendation to impose the ban was passed unanimously.
