Wimmera police were kept busy at the long weekend when monitoring the electronic music festival and a similar event – Pitch Music and Arts Festival – near Ararat.

Donald police monitored the Esoteric event, which drew about 2400 patrons to the small Wimmera town. 

Sergeant Darren Bull said patrons were mostly well behaved. 

Sergeant Bull said police ran a specific monitoring operation for the festival.

He said 21 patrons tested positive for drug-driving. 

“We had one alcohol-related driving issue,” he said. 

“We are still calculating all of the data.” 

Sergeant Bull said behaviour at the event was overall not bad, but said there were two males who were arrested for theft at the Donald IGA. 

“The steal was on Saturday and they were later evicted from the event and sent back to where they came from,” he said. 

“They were released pending further information.” 

Ararat police monitored the Pitch festival, which drew more than 10,000 people to Mafeking, south-west of Ararat.

Senior Sergeant Damian Ferrari said patrons were – for the most part – well behaved. 

“The festival is well planned and managed with around 500 staff present during the entire event,” he said. 

“This included security staff, medical staff, police, event management, food vendors and event organisers.” 

Senior Sergeant Ferrari said there was a lot of positive interaction between the patrons and police. 

He said there was a Melbourne man who illegally entered the festival and was processed for drug charges. 

“There was another male from Melbourne who was processed by police for theft-related charges,” he said. 

Senior Sergeant Ferrari said police had a drug bus and traffic-related operations in place at the end of the event.