Big storms have hit the first night of schoolies on the Gold Coast, but organisers say the opening of the annual end-of-school celebration otherwise went off without a hitch.
Powerful storms hit the region from around 5:30 Saturday afternoon and lasted for two hours, forcing organisers to push back events planned for the main schoolies hub at Surfers Paradise.
However with no major damage and the rain clearing to starry skies the event continued, with police reporting large crowds, more than the same time last year.
Over 13,000 school leavers attended the main event hub at the surrounds, with just six being arrested by police.
Three boys and three girls were arrested for drug possession in separate incidents, which is on par with the arrests for the opening night of schoolies last year
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Mark Raeburn, chairman of the Gold Coast schoolies advisory group, said overall they were very happy with the behaviour of this year's cohort.
"We expect when you've got this many kids there's going to be a few ratbags amongst them, that doesn't phase us too much," Mr Raeburn told Nine News.
"This is one of the biggest policing events in Australia ... we've got 11,000 volunteers and eight different government agencies all wrapping around these kids and keeping them safe."
There were also 21 non-school-leavers arrested on 31 charges in the area on Saturday night.
Mr Raeburn credits the two dance stages set up in the schoolies hub for keeping the teenagers occupied.
"A bit of doof-doof does wear the legs out when you do it for five hours straight."
Queensland schoolies will continue to celebrate for the rest of the week, with their NSW counterparts taking over from next Saturday for the second week of celebrations.
Away from the main Gold Coast event other popular schoolies spots also saw a relatively quiet start to the week-long event.
The only major incident was a teenager who was caught in a rip and had to be rescued by lifesavers on the Sunshine Coast.
The 16-year-old was on a camping trip with friends at Teewah Beach north of Noosa when he got into trouble just after midday Saturday.
He was airlifted to Sunshine Coast University Hospital as a precaution.
