Revolution balls
The PR officer for the Oxford Revolution Ball has responded vigorously to the decidedly mixed response from students who attended the ball on 23rd June this year.
Raph Mokades, who was a third year student at St Hugh's College last year, admitted he is "entirely happy to accept criticism and discuss it" in light of students' mixed response to the event, which promised to revolutionise the traditional Oxford ball and raise money for the Oxford Access Scheme.
Over two hundred extra tickets were sold after the official deadline of the end of 6th week of Trinity Term and the original projections for 2500 ballgoers were exceeded by over 500 on the night.
Objections from many centred on the lack of facilities for such a large number of people. The lack of litter bins was an issue for most, as was food. One ballgoer said: "Everyone was expecting unlimited food and drink. I starved myself all day, and I queued all night. I queued for over four hours for food and ended up with soggy chips."
In the Cuban section of the ball some had to queue for over an hour to be served, and a "vast amount of food was thrown away." The Health and Safety officer observing the ball was forced to shut down food outlets after "lots of people who were meant to be working for us on food stalls didn't show," said Mokades. "But it was our own fault for trusting the students to show up, as bad as it is to say. That was simply a mistake."
The claim that Mel B's performance was too short was rebuffed too. "A celebrity gives a frisson of excitement, and people loved to see her. I think she was on for the right amount of time, given what she is like as an entertainer."
He suggested that the performance of Karla Bates, the Sixth Former who won the Young Achievement Award for a song she had written, was the highlight of the evening.
However, he did accept that the organisational team of over one hundred students had learnt a lot from the evening that would help them in the future.
Student Carl Laferton was full of praise for the ball, and urged people to be realistic in their expectations. "I thought the Revolution was amazing myself," he said. "Food and beer until 6am and the fantastic Chesney Hawkes, who was ace. The aim I think was to have a ball that was competently organised and fun - in that respect they succeeded. The second aim was to promote Oxford Access by showing target 6th formers what a normal place Oxford is, and get lots of media coverage for the cause. In this respect I think they were not quite so successful."
With the most heavily promoted ball in Oxford, however, some were not happy with having to be realistic. "We were not marketing it as the traditional Oxford ball, so I don't think we were duplicitous in our marketing" said Mokades. "The most important thing," he added, "was that we made fifty per cent again what the turnover for the Oxford Access Scheme was. We couldn't have set our sights so high, but we put the figure at £25,000 and we stuck to it."
4th Oct 2001