• A young Wellington woman suffered a fractured nose, black eye, and possible concussion from a flying drumstick at Wellington’s Homegrown. 
• The drumsticks were thrown into the crowd by Stan Walker’s drummer at the end of his performance. 
• Alyssa Ta posted on TikTok urging performers not to throw hard objects into crowds. 

A Wellington student who suffered a fractured nose, black eye, and possible concussion after being hit by a flying drumstick at Homegrown believes she’s lucky it wasn’t worse. 

Festival-goer Alyssa Ta, 20, attended the event on Wellington’s waterfront for the first time earlier this month to see electronic dance act Synthony, but said things went awry when she felt a “thud” on her face at the end of Stan Walker’s performance. 

Ta said she was in the middle of the Waitangi Park mosh pit and had turned to leave when she felt a “hard smack”. 

“It hurt like hell, the impact was quite hard”, she said. 

Ta said she didn’t see the drummer throw his drumsticks but quickly realised what had happened. 

“It had bounced off my face and onto someone’s back”, who Ta said then picked up the drumstick off the ground. 

She sought medical attention from paramedics at the event, who assessed her face which she says was immediately swollen and bruised. 

Ta says she was in the middle of the crowd when she was hit by the flying drumstick. Photo / Andy McDonald. 

The drumstick had fractured her nose and possibly caused a minor concussion Ta said. 

“They advised to get that checked out the next day which I didn’t. 

“My friends said that they possibly thought I was [concussed] because I was quite sensitive to light, I had a black eye on the side where it nearly hit my eye and I would just forget some things that I would say.” 

After being given paracetamol and an icepack, Ta said she was “thankfully” able to go enjoy the rest of the festival. 

“I was quite lucky because it was on my nose, just missing my eye by like one inch.” 

Ta wants performers to stop throwing hard objects into the crowd, after she was left with a black eye, fractured nose, and suspected concussion. Photo / supplied. 

The incident happened on Friday, March 14. Ta said she’s mostly recovered now but still has light bruising. 

The near miss prompted Ta to take to TikTok, posting a video of her with Wellington Free Ambulance paramedics, captioned “dear performers. please don’t throw hard objects into the crowd”. 

The festival-goer took to social media to share her experience, which caught the attention of the drummer. Photo / TikTok. 

“I think it should change, soft objects like shirts or a guitar pick that’s small is fine but when it’s quite hard, and especially when it’s an overhand throw can be quite dangerous.” 

The post caught the attention of Stan Walker’s drummer who threw the sticks, Ross Nansen, who commented “oops so sorry my bad hope you are ok”. 

“Hope it didn’t ruin your weekend, again so sorry, won’t be throwing sticks out again :)”, Nansen said in a thread on the post. 

Ta said she also direct messaged Nansen who was “really apologetic”. She said she doesn’t hold it against him. 

Alyssa Ta says she didn't see the drumstick coming but felt a 'hard smack' on her face. Photo / supplied. 

Ta said she emailed Homegrown to report the incident in the hope it would prevent something like this happening again but hasn’t received a response. 

Homegrown did not respond to NZME’s questions about the incident. 

A Wellington Free Ambulance spokeswoman said they treated 121 patients over the two days Homegrown was held. Four patients were transported to hospital for further treatment. 

She would not discuss specific incidents citing patient privacy and confidentiality. 

Nansen and Stan Walker’s management also did not respond to requests for comment. 

Ethan Manera is a multimedia journalist based in Wellington. He joined NZME in 2023 and is interested in local issues, politics and property in the capital. Ethan is always on the lookout for a story and can be emailed at [email protected].