Thousands of school leavers have descended on the Gold Coast this morning as day one of Schoolies kicks off.
The week-long event will be supported by over one thousand volunteers, and hundreds of emergency service personnel to ensure the graduates have a safe time.
Over 20,000 schoolies are spending the morning checking into their hotels and receiving their wristbands.
Youth Affairs Minister Meaghan Scanlon says the class of 2022 deserve a momentous celebration.
“Young people over the last couple of years have had a pretty rough schooling experience, they’ve had to deal with a global pandemic and lots of international issues putting pressure on our system,” Minister Scanlon says.
“And they’ve come out through it with resilience and strength and I think they really deserve a celebration.”
Local police say they won’t be the “fun police” this week, but will have extra officers stationed to ensure a safe environment in the party precinct.
“We want everyone to have fun, we’re not the fun police, but we want people to do it respectfully. Be respectful of each other and enjoy each other’s company,” Chief Superintendent Craig Hanlon says.
“If you do get into trouble, our focus and the focus of every agency here is to make sure everyone is safe, and once people are safe we’ll look at what we have to do, as to what happened and deal with that later.”
The Red Frogs will have over 6,000 volunteers working around the clock assisting the young graduates.
They’ll be whipping up over 100,000 pancakes, as well as conducting about 4,000 walk homes while armed with 24 tonnes of red frogs
The Gold Coast will receive an expected 30-million injection into local businesses, with Schoolies being labelled as a “great economic win for the city”.
