Corpus Christi and St Hugh’s college balls are set to merge as a result of poor ticket sales for the Corpus Christi ball.Corpus JCR President Meg Powell-Chandler blamed the attraction of larger college balls as overshadowing the Corpus Christi event, for which the college only managed to sell 200 tickets. Powell-Chandler said, “It has been a shame that the smaller balls have found it hard to sell tickets and gain sponsorship, but that is unsurprising with big balls like the Worcester College one next term.”Following consultation with the JCR committee and a student vote, which supported the merger by an overwhelming majority, Corpus Christi Ball President Rhiannon Ward has joined forces with Alex Joseph, Ball President of St Hugh’s. Ward commented, “Hugh’s has a bigger capacity than us, plus they had sold more tickets than we had at the time. Merging has increased our market share of the ticket sales so we no longer have to keep worrying about how they sell.”The decision has met opposition from certain members of Hugh’s JCR, who are unhappy that Corpus students may end up paying less for their tickets, and with the fact that the theme was a Corpus decision.However, Joseph has said this was always likely to be the case. He said, “It all happened quite quickly and we had to rush through the bureaucracy so we didn’t carry out a vote amongst the JCR. However, we did consult the JCR committee who unanimously agreed. The fact of the matter is, our ball happens once every two years and we want to make this one better than the last.”The original theme for the St Hugh’s ball was ‘Seven Deadly Sins’, but with the merger comes a new theme, ‘Heaven and Hell’, contributed by Corpus Christi.Joseph said, “We were planning a fairly big ball for around 550 to 650 people. We have a capacity of 1,000 so it seemed logical to go ahead with the merger. We’re hoping around 350 people from Corpus will attend, and with 200 tickets already sold, and so much more interest since we announced the merger, we’re well on our way.”Powell-Chandler, said, “The ball merger is a really good thing from the Corpus perspective […] I’m sure it will be an incredible success.”The ball will now take place on Saturday of first week next term at St Hugh’s College. Competition includes the Exeter College Garden Ball due to take place on Saturday of noughth week and the Balliol College Ball scheduled for Saturday of second week.
by Omotola Akerele
Corpus joins Hugh’s Ball after poor ticket sales
