Foo Fighter fans were frustrated outside the venue in Christchurch.

The event company running a Foo Fighters' concert in Christchurch has apologised to fans after 6000 of them were still queueing at the venue gates when the band went on stage.

The rock legends were due on stage at 7.15pm, to play to crowds of 26,000 people.

But at 7.20pm, fans in the slow-moving, "unruly" line outside the AMI Stadium were tweeting their angst at event organisers.

"Hopeless @foofighters in CHCH 45 min in line only moved 20m," Tristan Laubscher wrote.

"(Band) playing now and no movement in line. Very poor."

Darren Burden, the general manager of Vbase, said this evening: "We are sorry these fans were late getting in to the event and we will work to avoid a repeat in the future."

He said "a number of factors combined to make it unfortunate for the 12,000 fans" who arrived 30 minutes before the show.

Vbase had 80 staff working at two gates, with 10 rows at each gate. They were conducting body and bag searches on all ticket holders.

"By the time the show started we estimate 6,000 fans were yet to be processed through the gates."

Earlier one fan wrote: "How do you keep an idiot waiting? Give them tickets to a Foo Fighters concert in Christchurch, New Zealand."

Joanne Koers said after the gig: "We, along with many, waited for over an hour just to gain entry through Gate B. There was no structure, no communication, and it was poorly organised.

"It was not clear why they had such a small area open, and how such a large bottleneck occurred. Someone should opened another entrance at least 30 minutes before the Foo Fighters started, not as the concert began."

Luke Walker, from Wellington, one of the last ticket holders to gain entry, was more anguished:

"I'm in, I'm f****** in," he said.

"You expect to queue at gigs like this but that was total disorganised chaos."

Hannah Weir arrived more than two hours before the main band started and had no problems.

"We arrived at 5pm and pretty much breezed through the entrance. Everyone's tickets said gates open at 4:30pm so it's silly that people thought to leave it till the last hour to rock on up and expect no wait when it's a stadium of 20,000 people."

The Christchurch City Council warned of traffic problems around the Addington venue but the delays were with entry into the gig. The problems were worst at the west entrance to the ground.

The backlog was eventually cleared about 30 minutes after the band started playing.



One concert-goer said: "We were stuck outside 40 minutes waiting for thousands of people to get through one 3-meter gate like cattle. What a sham. The management should be fired!! They finally opened another gate by undoing the fence just as the band came out...Totally mismanaged."

READ MORE: Foo Fighters concert 'best Wednesday night in Chch ever'

Performing tonight as part of a world tour for their latest album Sonic Highways, the rockers performed new songs and assorted hits from their 20-year back catalogue .

Since releasing their self-titled debut album in 1995, Foo Fighters have grown into one of the greatest America stadium rock bands, winning 11 Grammy Awards and selling 25 million records worldwide featuring an array of hit songs.

Support acts for last night's concert included Chicago rockers Rise Against and Auckland "punk rock 'n' roll" band Miss June.

Ahead of the concert, members of Foo Fighters took time out to explore the city.

To the delight of eastern suburb residents, frontman Dave Grohl cycled around the city yesterday morning and stopped at the Honey Cafe in New Brighton for a coffee and scone.

Nick Mooney, who works at Quiksilver in New Brighton, said he was surprised to see Grohl quietly enjoying his scone in the sun outside the cafe.

"You kind of think he'd be surrounded by bodyguards or something," Mooney said.

"But he was just sitting there wearing a bike helmet and eating his scone. We asked for a photo, I think we ruined it for him as then everyone started asking for photos."

In March 2011 the band performed a charity concert at the Auckland Town Hall and raised $354,903 for the Christchurch Earthquake Appeal.

Earlier today, Frontier Touring announced that the Foo Fighters will also play a "last minute, intimate and exclusive benefit show" at the Auckland Town Hall on Friday.

All profits from this show will go to The New Zealand Music Foundation.