Schoolies 2018: Thousands of school leavers travel to the Gold Coast for annual celebration

Thousands of school leavers have descended on the Gold Coast for the first day of 2018 Schoolies festivities.

Around 22,000 graduates are expected to travel to Surfers Paradise for the annual end-of-school celebration.

Today alone 13,000 people were expected to pass through the exclusive Schoolies Hub, where wrist band security has been heightened and only school leavers can enter by showing their student ID cards.

The Schoolies Hub will provide partiers with seven nights of exclusive entertainment for high school graduates.

Despite the festivities, safety warnings have also been increased for people travelling to the Gold Coast.

"(We're) encouraging everybody to drink lots of water, stay cool," paramedic Maddy Vandeveerdonk told 9News.

This year the volunteer Red Frogs group - who travel to Schoolies yearly to offer a helping hand to school leavers during their celebrations - also have a mobile app that can be used to request assistance.

Graduates can use the app to ask a Red Frogs member to cook them pancakes, or to request a walk home from a nightclub.

"We are estimating to cook about 50,000 pancakes and we expect to go through about 10 tonne of Allen's Red Frogs," Chris George from Red Frogs Australia said.

Meanwhile, police will also be out in force during Schoolies to seize any illicit drugs and have warned about the penalties of breaking the law.

"It's certainly a time for some of the school leaves to test the limits - be that drinking or other means of getting out into the world and experiencing things," Queensland Crime Stoppers' Trevor O'Hara said.