Just wondered if the author had any explanation for the quoted student's subsequent ejection from the premises?

To gleefully quote someone you have treated in such an overzealous, inappropriate and unjustified manner strikes me as the height of insolence.

I thought the ball was great although the dodgems were a bit unorganised in getting on to. But lets not dwell on the bad points. The music, fireworks, selection of drinks was great.

I'm a little confused - Dipsy seems to think that the writer was a steward at the event. If this is so how can he be qualified to write an opinion on the "success" of the event? Surely as a steward he was being paid to provide security at the event - not to take notes for a review article.

Presumably he was also being paid to remain sober and hence, hopefully, give a more faithful representation of the event than someone whose memories are a little hazy.

Doesn't that break the staff student protocol then?

This thread seems to suggest that staff aren't allowed to write articles...

Or is it that staff aren't allowed to write critical articles - they can only heap praise?

Seems a little like double standards if you ask me...

I blagged my way into the ball with the aim of writing a technical review of the equipment in use. I didn't partake in the ball itself, I just wandered around getting a feel for what was going on.

My review can be found at http://www.fogma.co.uk/ic_ball

OK some forward thinking for you all.

Due to a prior engagement I was unable to attend this years ball, so from those that did go, what would you like to see stay the same for next years event and what would you change?

If 1500 of you went then it should be possible to get some serious feedback, hopefully leading to an even better event next year.

So post replies on here or even e-mail me directly. Be full of praise or Mr. Negative, I don't mind which as long as I hear from you!

Well no response after almost an hour, surely some of the 1500 that went read live.

The sort of things I am after are:

* Where there any problems with geting in to the event? What were the queues like? Could this have been improved?

* What were the venues like? Did you like the acts? Which venue was your favourite? Were some venues too busy?

* If you had the dinner did you enjoy the food? Was it up to the standard you expected? Do you think it was good value? If you didn't have the dinner, is that because you were unable to get a dining ticket?

* Were drink prices reasonable? Was there enough selection?

* What were the amusements like? Was there generally enough happening to keep you entertained?

* What did you think of the event overall? Was it worth the ticket? Would you go again??

Also if someone from a staff perspective could indicate how well the audience was split among the venues, whether any bottle necks or overcrowding occurred. Also anything you thought went particularly well from a staff point of view.

I am after positive comments as well as negative, if we got something right then tell us. If you don't want to post in public but have a viewpoint then e-mail me by clicking on my name above.

Mike Moate (DPFS Elect)

Firstly I would like to thank all those involved in the ball for making it such a great success!

The committee, sabbs, ents team put loads of work in, so special thanks to them.

I was very impressed by how well the Ball worked on the night, and is definately the best of the three so far at IC.

I fought to scrap the stage and have a Marquee, as I remember last years Ball and hardly anyone watching. Not cost effective. So instead we struck a deal with college for the excellent Marquee. The Music (special thanks to all the bands, espec big band) in there was very cool. It was also really nice to have a chilled out seating area. People wandered from here around the lawn which was nice. The 3 main music rooms were also good, though of cause I loved the cheese!!

The fairground was great fun!

The meal was OK. Nothing spectacular. Some confusion over seating and people breathing in the helium balloons!! V.squeaky voices!

For next years ball:

Make sure start early like this year. Start in November at latest.

Dont bring back a main stage. Too expensive. Instead maybe a PA by a pop act in great hall.

Marquee was great, keep this.

Good marketing is essential. This year was pretty good, giving a good look. This is an early priority.

Make Dramsoc look for cheaper quotes than they originally offered if want to do ball again. Also less use of esoteric knowledge. They were perhaps a touch arogant which put people off.

Get sabbs/committee to write a detailed report of the ball each year. Where money went, what worked, what did nt etc. Essential for future success.

Anyway, enough from me. Back to pathology lectures and revision for exams in 3 weeks!

Many thanks to Tom for getting the ball rolling (no pun intended). I would like to echo his thanks to all those who were involved in the ball at any stage, I know it takes a lot of work.

Some excellent comments and I totally agree with starting earlier, hence my post here.

As for the DramSoc issue, the technical side of next years ball will be handled as a proper competitive tender exercise. Interested parties will be sent a basic specification and invited to respond with detailed quotations.

I expect DramSoc will be invited to quote along with others though whether or not they take the oppurtunity will be up to them.

Thanks again for the comments, 1 down 1499 to go :-)

I didn't go to the ball this year, because of the complete lack of music I would have been able to stand. I say bring back the main stage.

Thanks for the comment j100, can you indicate what type of music you would be able to stand.

Mike

Mustafa :- i'd be very concerned indeed if the steward in question was not sober!!!

Mike - you have my comment - wonderful evening, spoiled by self-important stewards.

Thought the Queen's Lawn looked spectacular, the fireworks were fab and loved the chill-out marquee but was still left with a bitter taste in my mouth due to said steward's actions. Think it's probably not just the Summer Ball - in general Union steward attitudes need to be improved.

Thanks for your comments Dipsy. If you can provide more info I will look into the stewarding issue.

Cheers to all those people who have thanked the bar staff for being tolerant, diligant, hard working and well tipped. Pick two from five which are lies.

The bottlenecks were obvious. The SCR didn't open until half an hour after it was supposed to because a certain bar manager is a retard. The marquee was rammed to the extent of moving staff across from the MDH until about 10, when it quietened down hugely.

Contempary music society (assmuming it is they who played in the marquee between a small band and the main jazz piece, otherwise apologies) should be shot, or their budget reallocated to a more worthwhile society, perhaps 'a**e scratching soc'. They are f**king appalling. The opening band for the evening were criminally underlistened and played genuinely chilled, relaxing yet funky music. Ace! Contempary music society contented themselves banging random percussion instruments together, rubbing pipes, and some chap on a flute clearly thought he was a snare drum, repeatedly playing the same motif. They were discordant, unpleasant to listen to, and contributed massively to the exodus of people from the marquee during their performance.

Did I mention tipping more? a f**king thirteen hour shift, and the bar on which I worked took 2 quid tips, from over 4.5K takings (6 people working).

As for the stewards being overzealous? My a**e. They focussed too heavily on the obvious areas, such as the MDH and the area with the Radio 1 DJs. Ironically, in the marquee, the bar staff were once again required to stop a fight (cf. mauritian night) which is above and beyond our remit by far, due to no stewards being present on the door. On the events which they did feel the need to attend (both heavily overstaffed by the green shirted stewards) they failed to prevent both a fight kicking off which resulted in broken windows, and bar staff taking a punch (MDH), and then in another managed to avoid stopping a random doing a backflip off the stage onto a speaker stand, requiring an ambulance to be called (Drum and bass area). I know some quality people who work for them, but seriously, what the f**k are the majority of them paid for?

I might sound bitter, but truth be told it was a quality event and I'm glad to have worked it. The appreciation for the effort put in by the staff who made this thing possible is upsetting, however. I worked a 13 hour shift (4pm -> 5am) to help make this event happen, as did over 40 other workers paid not-as-much-as-you'd-expect. Mentioning us in the report of what made this event worthwhile might make us slightly less annoyed.

Love,

worker

I thought that the Union Stewards on the night were superb.

"Worker's" comments are harsh and completely unfounded. You seem to forget that the Union Stewards are STUDENTS like you, who are employeed to help with the Health and Safety aspects of the event. e.g. avoiding fire hazards, preventing overcrowding. They are NOT licensed door staff - who are there to diffuse fights etc.

You forget that the stewards also worked in excess of 13 hours and successfully prevented a number of potentially dangerous situations. If there weren't enough stewards... then that is a separate, management issue.

With regard to the one serious casualty of the evening (in the JCR) - your comments are completely inappropriate. Can't say any more.

Perhaps if the bar staff had actually applied the licensing laws as they are paid to, and not served drunk customers, then some of the problems which you describe would not have arisen.

Erm, out of interest were they college bars or union bars?

College Bars... hence why worker's comments about the intellectual competancy are not disbarred by the ICU Staff-Student Protocol.

My apologies. My post didn't make clear what I wanted to point out - the poor management of the stewards, and the inadequate liason thereof between these union employed staff, and college run security.

It's insane to expect any of the bars to have run without issues with drunkenness, and as such I felt aggrieved when I was personally put in danger due to the lack of security or other staff in my bar area. As you say, it's neither their remit nor responsibility to break up fights, or generally act as bouncers.

As for not serving drunk people; I personally refused to serve people who I felt were incapable of tolerating more alcohol. I did this through a variety of means, normally recommending a soft drink, but believe me when I say a number of people met with outright refusal of service. I'd personally say it's far more difficult to judge whether a person is drunk, or merely slightly tipsy. I know several people who can seem entirely sober, yet burst into a drunken rage, compared with others who stumble and talk s**t, yet who are entirely safe. Which one should we serve?

My comments were not unfounded; to say such a thing would suggest I was not present, or was not observant during the event. I assure you I was both - I thought the event went very well overall, but there are still issues which hopefully will be resolved by next year. The liason between union and college catering is a key point to take into account; without adequate consultation and consideration, more problems of the sort I've mentioned will occur.

I appreciate fully that stewards are not licensed door professionals, and are neither qualified nor employed to diffuse violent situations. So why does the union continue to employ them with such a remit, or if it does not, why do they continue to act in such manner? Questions should surely be asked about the ratio of security to stewards if such a statement is made.

I'll agree to all the good points above. I really had a good time.

As for complaining about tips and a 13 hr shift....some people had already paid £50 for getting in and we arent made of money. Working the 13hr shift was your choice, if you didnt like it, you shouldnt have done it.

Very fair comment Simon!

Hearing these comments about inadequate stewarding, failing to prevent incidents only makes me more angry about my particular situation.

Didn't mean to finish my comment there!

I don't want to go into details particularly but suffice to say that two people were ejected from the premises for nothing more than arguing with a steward (there was no violence). Mike, I've complained to the Ents manager so I guess you can find out more details from him.

This complaint should definitely be handled through the Ents manager / Union President. I think it is inappropriate to keep on about it on Live!, since members of staff clearly cannot give their side of the story.

Personally I thought the ball was the best Ive been to yet, and Ive been to 4 of the last 5!! The music choice was excellent (truly something for everyone - if you didnt like anything then you obviously dont like music!) and there was a great atmosphere.

As one of the DJs I would like to congratulate Smyle on the fantastic job they did. Everything looked and sounded better than anything Ive ever seen in Imperial! Also it made a pleasant change to work with a technical team who were friendly and prepared to help without being arrogant or patronising as we are used to!

Paul I disagree about the music. There was no house, trance, techno. Are you saying people who like these genres don't like music?

There's such a wide variety of music genres these days. It's pretty much impossible imho to have 'something for everybody' without handing out personal minidisk players. (doesn't mean the ball can't be enjoyed by everybody of course! although I don't think this is what you mean to imply...)

I did enjoy it but ended up in the cheese room.

Techno: yes

House: I played about an hours worth of funky jazz-house in the Marquee which went down really well. Guess you missed it.

I was meaning more that there was something over the course of the night which everyone should be able to relate to and enjoy. It is impossible to have a room for EVERYTHING, but it was as close as we could get. I didn't mean to offend anyone by that statement!!

But you did mean to be as offensive to your usual techies as you could be..?

;o)

The bulk of DramSoc are a nice bunch of guys. They are let down by one or two who feel they are above everyone else who isnt a member of DramSoc and feel they have to put them down as much as possible. I have worked with them before and they have tried telling me that they know how to do my job better than me!

Paul,

nah, we generally enjoy working with the DJs... The bulk of the DJs are a nice bunch of guys and gals. They are let down by one or two who feel they are above everyone else who isnt a DJ and feel they have to put them down as much as possible. I have worked with them before and they have tried telling me that they know how to do my job better than me!

But please dont shoot the sound level messenger.

I am surprised that "someone" has not yet pointed out that it isnt just guys in dramsoc... really it inst... ;-)

Oh, and we have a few toys of DJs for friday night... it will be Very Nice...

hehe... by guys I meant a collective term for people. Im not suggesting that you are male dominated or anything!! ;o)

The 'Sound Level' incident: email me if you want to discuss my side of the story. I felt the response from DramSoc was a little over the top, especially what is now a requirement to put sticky tape all over my expensive equipment whenever its used!! Simply letting us know the situation would have been more beneficial to everyone! BTW I havent got a clue how to do your job!!

I hope we can work nicely together from now on, and friday is a good chance to do that! I hope you mean 'toys for DJs' and not 'toys OF DJs', and if so I look forward to seeing them. So, how many watts are we pumping into the quad on friday?

If the generic term 'guys' is used (as above) then I include myself firmly within that! :-P

Worker, you clearly have strong opinions on what you do/don't like in live music.

Fancy writing reviews?

Email me if you (or anybody else for that matter) are interested.

Surely that means page 3 of gulix was a guy... i feel a little cheated now.

I worked 4-4:30 myself, moved a lot of barrels of beer around and generally had a laugh, I liked the cheese music as I knew most of the songs and had a bit of a dance behind the bar and the big band was good, if they did play the same stuff as the last two times I've heard them... :)

If stewards don't stop people fighting then we need more security staff on the doors rather than them, from what I heard the guys involved in the fight are the usual, could have put money on them starting something before the event and made some cash :(

Special praise indeed to all the bar staff who did a magnificent job.

The stewards and bar staff are ALL students so I think it is unfair to criticise each other too much. I am very thankful for the very long hours you all worked.

With an event as big as the summer ball there was bound to be some incidents. I can only we hope that if mistakes were made we can learn from them. Perhaps the stewards should of been more flexibly arranged depending on the location of revellers. Also some bar staff with radios could be useful. But still a good job in difficult circumstances done by all!

Regarding the music choice. We picked the widest range which we could. The Cheese, as usual seemed the most popular, although RnB was reasonable (bigger room so looked less busy). the marquee was cool. Shame people thought one of the bands was weird.

Smyle were very friendly and organised. Good job done by them.

I have to agree with Paul about Dramsoc. Generally very good people, but can come across badly on occasions. And this is not just to us Union DJs!

Looking forward to those toys on friday night!!!!

Culture - while I occasionally hold strong opinions on music, I can normally only articulate them when I feel strongly about them. Quite a lot of music strikes no emotion with me, and as such I'd be a pretty poor reviewer 'Well, they weren't bad. Five mehs out of ten'.

Most of my comments were way over the top, and I apologise for that. The sentiment was there, but overstated.

I'll reiterate that I thought the marquee was superb - as other posters have mentioned, the last DJ had a nice set going on (I do like Chicane though, so I'm probably slightly biased), and the first band were very cool. As for big band playing the same music as before .. if you read through certain budget allocations for this and next year, you might find out why their musical choices are so constrained. Good to see they take it professionally though, the performance was polished.

I think to infer that cambridge balls are in orders of £100 is a bit far fetched...£20 is more reasonable approximation. And by the way about 100kg of carbon fibre isn't that hard to hang...

Keep an eye out for the blue, A4 Questionnaires on this years summer ball.

Fill them out and place them in the boxes at Union Reception and in da Vincis for a chance to win a bottle of Champagne.

are you hanging a single 100kg brick? or do you mean 100kg worth of carbon fibre sheets?

i imagine that makes a difference to the cables and loading.

Lets go off topic :-)

Hanging the brick is arguably easier than the carbon fibre sheet collection (hearinafter CFSC) as one can use a selection of hanging methods. e.g. one point of 100kg or 2 of a little over 50kg (we may need ancillery kit to stop the points pulling towards each other, depends how they have been fixed. but we need 50kg verticle, and an amount that depends on the distance vertically downwards of our load from the points, and the distance between the points if we are letting the points pull in. alternativly we could use a bar between the two points giving us effectivly a single hanging point for the load)

Hmmm.... levers, moments, and all that Jazz.

the CFSC is going to need to be stable. simply hanging our brick off the ground is one thing. getting our CFSC in the correct orientation so it looks its funkiest, and stays there despite possible windage issues is annother matter.

What ant is trying to say is that hanging 100kg is technically not all that much really (couple of legths of 4mm steel wire, and some DIN rated dogs would do the trick). but he is missing a rather important point. It doesnt matter what you actually techinically achieve. Its whether it looks any good that is the measure of success.

As ever the bit that amazes people is the concept. the actual execution of the concept may be very simple...

Or you could just mount it on the top mounted air scoop which is designed for lifting the entire weight of the car - it somewhat obviously must withstand forces orders of magnitude higher than the weight of the car to protect the driver in a crash.

I imagine the engine and gearbox had been removed as well. Should bring the weight down substantially.

Yeah most bands are in the "5 out of 10" regime, so it is always a bit tricky to write reviews and there are so many styles of music out there, so what may be music to one person maybe noise to another. But full credit to all the student bands, it takes a fair few rehersals and a lot of time to sound that good!

In reply to Paul and Tom about friday...

it's be about 13kw in total....

I think one of the problems with inexperienced DJ's (not suggesting either of you are) is that a lot don't seem to understand the "green lights good, red lights bad" syndrome with DJ mixers. Circuitry inside DJ mixers isn't exactly full of headroom at the best of times (not even the top-of-the-range kit) and there aint much the techs can do if all you're sending them is a square wave.

That comment is not aimed at anybody specifically, just an opinion I have collected through many years of working with DJ's!

SO, if there's no red lights on ya signal meters...we won't come bothering you!

all the best and see you friday (with our nice big sound rig),

Mike W

What DJs understand is complaints from the dancefloor that the punters can hardly hear the music because its too quiet! If after half an hour of continuous complaints from them, and us asking the techies to turn the volume up at their end with no response its understandable we get a little frustrated and do something to wake you up a bit (like going from orange to red!)!! We were losing people from the room cos it was too quiet and you guys weren't responding to us! If your kit couldnt cope you could have just told us so instead of assuring us the volume was going to be turned up! We do understand sound levels - its why we need you NOT to tape up the gain controls!! There.... thats my side of what happened!

As for the car - I believe it was 250kg and had no engine! I'm no engineer, but it seemed to be attached by 2 chains to a plank of wood which seemed to be held in place by 2 more wooden wedges!! I'll put it this way - I wasn't going to stand around underneath it that night!!

Dont forget that we are only pawns in the larger field of things. I do find it amusing that someone is suggesting a DramSoc rig is underspecced. i must admit i have *never* heard that one before ;-)

dont forget that we work for other masters than "just" the punters. Just as you have people wanting it louder, we have the management of the event, added in with requirments to avoid excessive noise links from the venue.

I guess we are both playing piggy-in-the-middle in many respects.

anyway, paul, i will drop you a line now. lets clear this up and all be friends!

I so want to get invloved in this arguement, as I see Mike W already has, but it is almost more fun just sitting back and watching it unfold. Please continue, it is nice to see that some things never change!

Paul,

I can understand your frustration, however there is simply no question of "our kit not being able to handle it". NOTHING can produce a clear sound if the signal it is being fed (ie from your mixer) is a square wave because you're driving it into clipping (ie into the red). Hence to protect the kit from damage, the pa is turned down until you sort your end out. As Ed says, techies are often directly responsible to management, and if they tell us to turn it down we have to. Believe me, sound ops tend to enjoy high levels of volume, and we (well certainly I) like to turn it up till we get management complaints or it becomes dangerous.

As for taping gain controls, I would leave that as a last resort.

That's just my 2p's worth...

Mike W

This is my confusion. I couldn't imagine your system not being able to go louder, so didnt understand why it couldnt be turned up at your end when we were feeding at 0dB! We only started clipping it after about half an hour of asking you guys to turn it up!

If it was a 'too loud for management' issue then all that was needed was to tell us this on the 2nd and 3rd time we asked you to turn it up! We wouldn't like it but we are used to it, and knowing the issue we wouldnt have pushed our master up!

Anyway, back on topic: The summer ball was wicked!! ;o)

Geesh...

A Chemist and an (ex) Mechanical Engineer talking about clipping, square waves and 0db ...

... do Electronic Engineers have to talk about Nitrates and Phosphates or Beams and Cantilevers now?

:oP

Michelle,

How DARE you sit back and gloat!!! ;-p

Sam,

I believe i was touching on mechanics and stuff above... and I am an Electrical Engineer (well... sort of...)

Simon,

After years of being in the middle of if it I feel as if I have earned the right to sit back and "gloat"!

Are you working on Friday?

M

x

:-)

Ironic that the picture above is actually not from this years event...

Oh well.

As for other things, lots of people don't seem to understand what the summer ball is for.

Shouldn't it be "By students, for students", like it was in the past?

Random Student,

Well... apologies for the picture. Sadly I didn't have any pics of this year's event at my disposal when I wrote the article.

I imagine that any pics from Sat night will be pretty cool though.

Simon

Paul,

I can't comment on the event itself as I wasn't crewing it!

Mike W

I think quite a lot of the Dramsoc complaints largely stem from communications problems and misunderstandings. Dramsoc techs want the event to be good and don't purposefully annoy people.

As for Smyle I believe that they are hardly faultless on this count either as I have heard a rumour that the sound guy in the Marquee ignored the big bands request to turn up the Sax on the monitors using the phrase "I'm the sound engineer". Not just Dramsoc techs then.....

"Ironic that the picture above is actually not from this years event..."

Even more ironic that it was taken by a member of DramSoc at an event setup by DramSoc in the UCH... (Yes you can use my photo BTW ;-)

Steve,

I agree about DramSoc - let's all be friends now, huh?

As for Smyle - dont know about that incident but they seemed pretty nice whenever I spoke to them.

Paul you may blame DramSoc but do you know how union events actually run?

Think about this:

DJ's: Want music loud as posisble.

Stewards: Communicate between licensee and Ents.

DramSoc: Want it loud too, but do what they are told from higher authority (licensee).

Ents: Want good night for punters (normally loud music).

Licensee: Want good night for punters, but also want the union to keep it's licence.

K&C / Westminster Residents: Want university to make no noise at all.

Analysis:

People stuck in middle: Stewards and DramSoc - want loud music, but do what they are told.

So don't blame the Stewards or DramSoc for the noise levels. It has to be kept reasonable cos of the a**ey residents who want to shut the union down.

I know - let's blame the residents - they knew there was a university there when they bought their house/flat.

Random: Funnily enough I do know how union events work having been part of ents for almost 3 years and having organised and run events there myself!

My issue was not so much about the sound levels, but more the way it was dealt with by DramSoc and the attitude of one or two of their members. As I stated in an earlier post, had we been told that it was a 'licensee' issue about the volume we would have lived with it and not pushed the issue any further. Instead we were repeatedly told 'yeah no problem' when we asked for it to be turned up, then it wasnt.

Anyway, I have made my point direct to DramSoc now, we are being very... ahem... 'adult' about it and Im sure we'll be best of friends tomorrow night!!

As for the residents.... I agree we should blame them for everything. Them and the council! Hehe... ;o)

We seem to have got somewhat off track on this thread!

In reply to Mike I do know about sound distortion and not going into the red. Some other guest schooldisco Djs should be taught about this and the overuse of microphones (we dont want to hear a DJs voice all night!)

Anyway the dramsoc/mike kit is being used in the quad I guess (as not gonna rain tomorrow night), so wont get to use it. Cheese hopefully in Dbs, with my last cheesy set of the year!

The whole dramsoc, Djs argument thing: Dont want to get involved!! We are all trying our best to give the students a good night. Lets all make luv and listen to the music!

Back to the Summer Ball.

Lets start planning next year now! Even bigger and better!

this is a reply to summer ball success.

Due to a prior engagement I was unable to attend this years ball, so from those that did go, what would you like to see stay the same for next years event and what would you change?

If 1500 of you went then it should be possible to get some serious feedback, hopefully leading to an even better event next year.