Saturday's Summer Ball went relatively smoothly, with over 1,000 students seeing out the night - so many that they nearly didn't all fit into the Union when activities on the main College campus closed. Despite the success of the ball, Chris Larvin did fail to burn down Sherfield with the fireworks, quite an important oversight.

Many people started the party early, with 580 meals served from 18:30 - in a marked difference to College food several years ago, the meal was quite good despite the 'funny-looking' starter. Imperial's outgoing Rector, Sir Richard Sykes, gave the after dinner speech, attracting a number of laughs while recounting tales of some of the controversies he has caused over the past 8 years. Sir Richard also picked up honorary life membership of the Union.

The traditional fireworks once again failed to burn down EEE or Sherfield - better luck next time! (Photo: Ian Gillett)

The cashless bar seemed to work well in the College bars, with comparatively short queues all night. The Union bars were also accepting cash so saw higher queuing times, but still only 2-3 deep at the busiest point in the evening. Other lessons had also been learned from last year, with everybody getting their champagne in glasses rather than plastic cups, as happened when the Rector arrived last year.

In total over 2,400 students arrived during the night, with evening entertainments kicking off at 20:00 to packed rooms around campus. Despite the large numbers, only two trips to hospital were required and only one due to excessive alcohol. Queuing seemed to be kept to a minimum throughout the night, except in a couple of brief busy periods as large influxes of people arrived at the front entrance and drinks token stalls.

Those in the VIP room at the start of the night did not escape queues however, with the free cocktail bar proving very popular - cocktails were delivered very slowly at first, admittedly with lots of flair. By around midnight a number of drinks had run out, and there seemed to be more alcohol on the bar than behind it. With more of a focus on serving drinks and less on their delivery, queues subsided later in the night.

Whether this ball will make a profit or loss is still not known, with a final figure not available until late July. Previous early estimates have always proved to reveal a more positive picture than reality later shows, so there is not one available this year.

The Rector, Sir Richard Sykes, gives a death glare before embarking on a rampage of dodgem-destruction (Photo: Ashley Brown)

After the fireworks Live! arranged a "grudge match", pitting College, Union and Live! teams against one another on the dodgems, providing the opportunity for some much needed revenge on all sides. The Live! team bore the brunt of a particularly vicious attack from the College team, outgoing Rector Sir Richard Sykes being chauffer driven into their side by Director of Commercial Services Paddy Jackman and pinning them against the wall. A number of further collisions occured with Jackman later saying "even I can hit a stationary target". Good team work between Live! and the Union allowed them to get a number of hits before the end though. You can view the 'dodge-cam' below!

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