Police minister Mick Gentleman said the trial at Floriade was not prompted by safety concerns or antisocial activities in the past, but rather a way to make punters feel more secure.

"It's more a feel about better public safety, showing people we're being cautious about public safety in those bigger events. Most people feel pretty safe and that's a good idea to keep that safety going," Mr Gentleman said.

Four solar-powered mobile cameras, with a back-up battery system, will be deployed at the city's annual celebration of spring.

They can feed information back to police using Canberra's free Wi-Fi network or via 4G.

The cameras will be elevated, with a siren to prevent tampering.

The trial was announced as part of a $376,000 upgrade of the city's CCTV camera network. The public safety camera network has 72 cameras in Kingston, Manuka, Canberra Stadium, Manuka Oval, Exhibition Park and the city.

The old CCTV cameras have been replaced with high-definition cameras with multi-directional lenses and would capture better footage at night, Mr Gentleman said.

Access to the CCTV system is restricted to specially-programmed PCs and staff of the ACT Government and ACT Policing that possess the log-on credentials.

Footage is captured 24/7 and destroyed after 30 days, unless it's required for investigative purposes.

Staff at the Winchester Police Centre in Belconnen monitor the Public Safety CCTV system on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights to identify trouble early and dispatch officers faster.

Mr Gentleman said the government could roll out more CCTV cameras if requested by police.

"We'll see how these ones go and if police request some more then i'll go to budget and get some more money for them," Mr Gentleman said.

"There was a great movie called 1984 which talked about [too much surveillance], but it's a recognition of today's technology and police being able to be much more responsive so if we see a crime in action police can be there almost straight away to deal with that."