If you noticed the dazed, dozy, starry-eyed students wandering around at the beginning of the term and you are wondering what happened here's the answer - a week at the Student Arts Festival.

If anyone was going to complain about the Arts Festival (held in Christchurch, May 5-12) there would be one overriding argument - too much to see in too little time. Although incredibly well organised (thank-you John Page and many others) it was a hectic week with each day's events starting at 10 am and going through to the early hours. Anyone who was going to try and see everything they were interested in had to be in top gear from go to woe.

Sunday's opening started with a Concerto for Twenty-odd car horns. Armed with a screwdriver for a baton the conducter, Phillip Norman, managed to co-ordiante the car-horn honkers into what was, surprisingly aptly, termed an arpeggio. A large crowd stood in the rain and applauded their way into a renewed blast or, in musical terms, an encore.

Despite the weather enthusiasm was high at the Grand Opening. Later in the afternoon John Gadsy kept the crowd amused during a Poetathlon; five people read peotry as they performed various feats round an obstacle course. Wading through the icy cold Ilam stream, drinking wine, hurdling and a sack race were nothing to the orators who performed bravely in the name of art.

On a more formal note the Festival was officially opened by the Minister for the Arts, Hon Mr Alan Highet. Mr Highet spoke about the Youth Initiatives Fund which was established in December 1977 as "the Governments response to the social effects on young people of the unemployment situation." Jobs in the arts have been created for a lot of young people, including some of the festival organisers, under this scheme.

The organisers certainly did their job incredibly well and John Page, the director, who has been working towards the Festival for over a year, certainly deserves more than a pat on the back. Some of the groups performing, such as the Chameleon Theatre Group, are employed under the Temporary Employment Scheme. It seems crazy that it takes an unemployment situation before people are paid by the Government to work in the Arts.

The highlight of Sunday evening was the Tripple Ripple Rock Concert held in the Town Hall - the "tripple" being Te Aroha, a predominantly Maori band, Citizen Band, and an Auckland group; and, fresh from Australia, the Phil Manning Band. The latter certainly provided the "ripple" particularly the band's leading guitarist and names like Phil Manning, and their newly acquired guitarist-cum-blues harp player Midge Marsden (a New Zealand boy who used to play in Country Flyers.)