Canberra police seized drugs and detained drunk teenagers at Canberra's Groovin' the Moo festival on Sunday but were generally satisfied with the crowd.
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An ACT Policing spokesman said the number of people who jumped the fence at the sold-out event because they did not have a ticket "posed a significant issue for event organisers and police". But only one person was detained for trespassing, after multiple attempts at fence-jumping.
Two more people were locked up for intoxication. All three festival-goers taken away by police were underage and were later released to their parents.
An ACT Policing spokesman said cops made six drug seizures, one up from last year, but could not specify the drugs until they had been forensically tested.
"Despite these incidents, police were generally pleased with the behaviour of the majority of festival goers," the spokesperson said.
It is understood scores of young people were refused entry to the event and left out of pocket due to buying illegitimate tickets off Facebook or websites such as gumtree.
Canberra police started investigating three reports of fraudulent tickets before Sunday.
The spokesman urged people to buy tickets for events only from events box office, official agents or reputable ticket sellers.
"Only purchase tickets via online forums if you know the person you are dealing with and trust them or it's a reputable ticket exchange site," they said.
"Should you decide to purchase a ticket via an online forum, consider using legitimate pay methods that have protection and offer secure payment."
A Gumtree spokesman said the resale of tickets could often be regulated by the ticket issuer or by state laws.
"Before buying or selling even tickets, users should contact the ticket issuer and ensure the resale is permitted," he said.
In 2016, police arrested two people at the Groovin the Moo'; one for intoxication and disorderly behaviour and another for assaulting a security guard after being asked to leave the festival.
Police are not investigating any incidents involving security guards this year. But while fence-jumping was not a serious issue in previous years, yesterday ACT Policing confirmed it was responding to a number of trespassing cases.
It is believed there were no reported drug overdoses at the festival. In response to the ACT government rejecting Harm Reduction Australia's pill-testing proposal for this year's Groovin' the Moo, harm minimisation advocates brought hundreds of do-it-yourself pill testing kits to hand out.
A spokeswoman for the ACT drug testing kits group said the initiative was a huge success.
"The kits were definitely popular," she said, though did not say how many kits were distributed.
"One of the sad things was the mere fact that this behaviour is illegal and has driven it completely underground, so people with these illicit substances were much more concerned about their mum and dad or police finding out than the harm it could actually do."
