Cake Tin Sevens

Among several other things, the rules say no nudity or near-nudity, no devices resembling, or which can be used as, a weapon, and, of course, no alcohol. There’s an ocean of bottled beer to buy inside, but don’t try to bring your own because you won’t get it in, a regulation which, I would say, is more strictly enforced than some of the others.
Yes, it has come and gone for the tenth or eleventh year in succession, the International Rugby Sevens weekend in Wellington, when the streets are roamed, the pubs raucously filled to overflowing and the ‘Cake Tin’ as it is popularly known, long since sold out to outlandishly fancy-dressed, overwhelmingly older-teenage and young adult throngs, some with an occasional eye for the rugby, most responding far more enthusiastically, with arms waving, a dark bottle clutched in one hand, hips swaying to the disco music resounding around the stadium at every opportunity, which means very often.
The police were quite happy with the outcome at the end of the first day. Only twenty-eight arrests, mostly for fighting and similar ‘minor offences’ (!), while eighty-two people were ejected from the stadium. Figures for the second day were a little higher, while sixty-to-seventy arrests were made during the all-night street party in town, a result with which the officers of the law were well content.
Afterwards it was congratulations all round. Wellington had done it again. All agree that this weekend is like no other on the International Sevens circuit, which includes Hong Kong and, believe it or not, Las Vegas. The great party had been held once more, with only one dissenting voice to be heard in the correspondence columns of the capital city’s morning newspaper, from a Kiwi resident abroad but who timed his visit home to coincide with the great event. Never again would he subject himself to such a beer-swilling masquerade that used the pretext of the rugby for a rave.
Now most New Zealanders take their rugby very seriously and one can safely assume that other true lovers of the game stay well away, though doubtless following events on the pitch in front of their television sets, where one can assume there is considerably less disturbance. So their voices are not heard in the great chorus of self-congratulations. But wait a moment. Something soon happened to disturb the party-goers and all those who support them - the weekend is worth millions of dollars to the city.
Wellington’s application to hold the New Zealand leg of the Sevens circuit permanently was turned down by the New Zealand Rugby Union Board. The bidding will be open to others after next year’s event, and Auckland and Dunedin have already expressed an interest. This caused great consternation in the capital city, tempered eventually by the confident assertion that no one else could possibly put on such a show.
Auckland and Dunedin evidently can’t rave as well - indeed, their ravers come to Wellington for the weekend and seem happy to continue doing so.