Balliol College’s summer ball has been described as a “failure”, after the committee was flooded with furious complaints about the event.
Scores of students were angry about the shortage of food and drink, the unhelpful behaviour of staff at the ball and the poor quality of entertainment.
Tom Morris, a Christ Church student who wrote a letter of complaint, claimed that food ran out at 10.30pm and the alcohol at 12am.
He said, “Alcohol and food running out at any event (let alone a ball for which the guests have paid £70) is always a complete disappointment. If Balliol had any sense of shame, they would apologise for hosting a complete embarrassment of a ball.”
Another first year, Freddie Mason expressed anger about the alcohol running out by 12am. He compared the ball to the Cardinals’ Cocktails where for £13 students can drink as much as they want, whereas the Balliol ball “couldn’t provide a bottle’s worth of vodka.”
Mason also complained about the behaviour of the ball committee, whose members were unhelpful when asked about the lack of alcohol. He commented, “Committee members were off their faces, I couldn’t get any information from them.”
He said he had written a letter of complaint to the ball committee and that he had heard students from Magdalen were going to do the same. He added, “I’m really angry, I paid £70 and received essentially nothing for it, it’s really bad.”
Several students have also complained that the ball failed to provide the shisha den and the absinthe bar, which it had advertised as part of its entertainment.
Others have complained about the silent disco and the huge queues for it. Delays are thought to have been caused by a time consuming system requiring students to hand in their Bod cards to obtain headphones. Attendees then had to queue to retrieve their cards when leaving to get a drink or to go to the toilet.
However, some enjoyed the Ball. Katy Theobald, a Balliol student said, “I felt the license for alcohol running out at 1am was unfortunate but since the committee couldn’t control that it can’t be held against them. Until then I always found drinks were available.”
James Balfour, the co-President of the ball, denied allegations that the food and drink ran out by 10.30pm.
“Neither the food nor drink ran out at 10.30, in fact our caterers did not begin to serve the hog roast and Patisserie Valerie desserts until 10.30 specifically in order to stagger the food”, he said.
“We were legally required to stop serving alcohol at 1am as that is when our temporary event license was due to expire; the alcohol was served up until 12.45 when we began to phase it out in order to meet that deadline.”
Balfour added, “The vast majority of guests at the Balliol ball seem to have enjoyed themselves thoroughly and we have had many congratulatory emails and messages to that effect.”
