Ever wondered exactly what goes on each year at Schoolies?
How many fellow school-leavers were also having the time of their lives at the same time as you, how many got on the wrong side of the law, and just how many of those red frogs got handed out to people? We’ve come up with a list of stats for you to get your head around, collected from a couple of years of epic end-of-exam celebrations. Good and bad, it’s all here – take a read:
- The Red Frogs crew hand out 16 tonnes of red frogs each year. This year they also had 1.5 pallets of mangoes to distribute as well. In 2011 they cooked 54,000 pancakes.
- Arrests were down 30% in 2013 compared to the previous year, according to police, despite several dangerous incidents.
- 15,000 Schoolies from New South Wales and Victoria were expected to hit up the Gold Coast this year.
- In 2012, there were approximately 30,000 Schoolies waking up for their week on the Gold Coast. It generated an estimated $100 million in revenue across the country – $60 million in Gold Coast venues alone. In 2013, the number of Schoolies increased to 40,000.
- “Several thousand” Schoolies left the country to head away from the Gold Coast and towards more exotic locations for booze-free or volunteer Schoolies experiences, according to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Unleashed took in at least 3,000 of them.
- Research from the National Schoolies Week organisation claims that 52% of boys and 37% of girls get drunk every night of their trip.
- Last year, three-quarters of Schoolies got drunk, one in five passed out, and a quarter injured themselves during the week. Unsurprisingly, just over a third ended up with a hangover and about a quarter threw up from the drinking…proving that drinking to excess, while it dominates the Schoolies experience, really isn’t the best way to spend the week.
