Many Albert Town residents experienced a sleepless night on Saturday as music from the Rippon after-party at Dublin Downs continued until dawn.
Saturday night's after-party was the last officially sanctioned by Rippon Festival organisers, who the Otago Daily Times understands are keen to distance themselves from the event after 10 years' involvement.
It was held on private land and resource consent was obtained for a dance party and live music to play until 8.30am on Sunday.
The Rippon after-party was a separate event from the day-long music festival which took place at Rippon Vineyard on the other side of Wanaka.
Former Wanaka Community Board chairman and Albert Town resident Bill Gordon said he did not understand how resource consent which sanctioned a noisy all-night party could be granted.
‘‘If you had a private party and were that loud, then noise officers would be there to take your stereo and tell you to be quiet. Why didn't this happen?''
He accused the Queenstown Lakes District Council planning and regulatory body, Lakes Environmental, of double standards and ‘‘lining their own pockets'' with expensive resource consent fees, while not adequately enforcing the consent.
Lakes Environmental chief executive Hamish Dobbie said numerous noise complaints, ‘‘mainly from Albert Town'', were received on Sunday morning about loud music from the afterparty.
‘‘Noise officers did not visit the site, because they were all aware the after-party was happening as a consented activity, and we also had a noise monitoring representative on site,'' he said.
Staff were inquiring whether there was any problem of compliance from the party organisers. ‘‘This was a one-off consented event and anything which we learn here from this instance will be taken into account for any future event of this nature,'' Mr Dobbie said.
