Arts Ball Reception Changed Due to Lack of Student Spending
The Arts Ball, one of UCC’s largest and most popular balls, saw a last-minute change of plans this year after a dispute over the revenue the New Bar gained from hosting the event.Held on the 5th of February in Rochestown Park Hotel, this year approximately 1,600 tickets were sold for the Arts Ball. In previous years the pre-ball reception has been held in the New Bar, with the buses collecting students on O’ Donovan’s Road.However this year students were told two days before the Ball that the reception would now take place in Deep South, on Grand Parade, and the buses would depart from the city centre. The change in venue came about as Terry Brennan, General Manager of the Student Centre, claimed that the costs of holding the reception far exceeded the benefits.“There was no booking for the New Bar for the pre ball reception for the Arts Ball made by the Students’ Union this year,” claimed Brennan, who added that in previous years “most of the students were coming from house parties and getting in the queue directly for the bus without going to the New Bar and spending any money.” As a result the cost of providing security to assist in the loading of the buses would be too high, since it would not be covered by student money spent in the New Bar.The Student Centre had made a loss on previous pre-ball events, so proposed that the students would be allowed access to the buses, but only with a sales receipt from the New Bar. However UCCSU President Mark Stanton felt that such a move would be unfair, stating that “I understand where the Student Centre is coming from as I sit on the board myself but, when it came down to it, we didn’t want an extra charge for students and moved the location.”Stanton also highlighted that while a provisional booking was in place for the reception to be held in the New Bar, this was never confirmed, adding that “there was a breakdown in communications between us and the Student Centre.”The Union’s Entertainments Officer Paidi Brady added that in the run-up to the event UCC Campus Security had also expressed a number of concerns about the planned reception, due to “the disruption caused from previous balls with the buses on O’Donovan’s Road.”