At the turn of the millennium 15,000 people gathered at the top of a mountain to dance. And then, it rained. A lot. Produced by Kirsten Johnstone

"I had half the crew yelling at me to stop this madness."

Twenty years ago, at the turn of the millennium, around 15,000 people gathered at the top of a mountain to dance. I was one of them.

Around half had bought forged tickets or climbed up through the bush to get in. The Gathering was an alcohol-free event, but most came with a stash of illicit substances.

And then, it rained. A lot.

The first Gathering was in 1996, a break-off from pioneering NZ outdoor dance party Entrain, which had been going since 1992, inspired by festivals in Europe and Goa.

Murray Kingi, Mel Rutherford-Dower, Tim Owens, Grant Smithies and Jose Cachemaille saw the opportunity to bring the fractured sub-genres of dance music together for one festival with high production values.

They'd caught the zeitgeist - electronic dance music was growing exponentially in popularity; raves were popping up in provincial centres. But there hadn't been a festival that had brought trance, drum 'n' bass, dub, ambient and happy hardcore together in the same festival. Kids came from all over the country to party at The Gathering, and it became a massively important part of the musical eco-system of the time.

Acts like Pitch Black, Fat Freddy's Drop, Minuit, King Kapisi, Salmonella Dub, and The Nomad really found their people there.

"It felt like a first for New Zealand"

"It really felt like a coming together," says Tiki Taane, who was playing with Salmonella Dub at the time.

The Gathering was held at Canaan Downs/Pīkikirunga on the top of Takaka Hill near Nelson. The only road in was narrow and windy, but once you were there, the beech forest surrounding the paddocks was idyllic, the lime-stone landscape perfect for exploring in between dances. Māori legend says that the scales of a Taniwha are embedded in that land.

"It's special up at Canaan Downs" says Tiki.

"There's a magical wairua up there. It's raw, it's rugged, but it's also got an intense but beautiful energy."

In the lead-up to the turn of the millennium there was global anxiety over the Y2K bug - that our computers would stop working, and that it might cause missiles to drop out of the sky, or rip out the fabric of our entire economic system.

And while the EFTPOS did crash for a little while at the Gathering festival, it wasn't the only worry. …

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details