May Balls-Up Hits Sidney Grads

May Ball tensions erupted after grad students at Sidney Sussex were excluded from booking tickets in a pre-sale yesterday.

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Sidney Sussex grads are furious after a website cock-up meant they couldn’t buy presale May Ball tickets.

Despite tickets being released at 4pm yesterday, a technical error meant that grad students were unable to buy any for 15 minutes. By the time the error was corrected, dining tickets had sold out, and some grads couldn’t get any tickets.

2010’s May Ball at Sidney

May Ball President Jack Scannell – now nicknamed ‘Scammer’ by angry grads – offered an apology but as yet no compensation, saying: “Due to logistical and budgetary constraints, the committee is unable to extend the dining provision for this year’s ball.”

Given that a large portion of graduates are on one-year courses and that Sidney’s May Ball is biennial, many students are extremely unhappy. Sidney PhD geographer Sebastian Gibson said: “It is my belief that the committee knew full well postgraduates would be excluded from the dining allocation.”

In a statement to The Tab, Scannell said: “We are currently in the process of collecting the details of all those affected, in order to canvass opinion on the best manner in which to provide compensation. Despite this error, it needs to be stated that overall, the pre-sale was extremely successful.”

“This does not, however, excuse the fact that some members of the college were disadvantaged by a failing in our online system.”

Scannell said efforts were also underway to make sure the cock-up won’t happen again, but this will be little conciliation to current grads who won’t be around for the next Ball in two years time.

Several shunned grads have now rallied together to put on their own dining event before the ball, claiming that they “will dine like kings, for much less.”