With dozens of police standing sentinel on the rural roads leading into a bush rave festival on the mid-north coast, there was always the threat of some arrests.

But the scores of Subsonic Music Festival attendees who are now facing drug possession charges have stunned authorities and even prompted a magistrate to order a fresh court sitting day to deal with the flood of new cases.

Police handed out 85 court attendance notices for possessing drugs such as LSD as attendees arrived at the Subsonic Music Festival at Monkerai. Credit:iStock

Over five days, including a day either side of the three-day festival which finished on a property at Monkerai near Stroud on Sunday night, Port Stephens police handed out 85 court attendance notices for drug possession and supply, 36 cannabis cautions and charged 14 motorists with drug-driving.

And intelligence from local residents suggests the 15-hour daily police operation, which finished each night at midnight, was met with a stream of pre-dawn traffic along the usually quiet Bucketts Way as 5000 festivalgoers from as far afield as Victoria arrived to take part.